SHOOTING 
FOR BOYS 




AFREDERCKtOUNS 




Class C^ V 11^3 

Book- XLlL^ 

Copyright^" . 



CQPyRIGHT DEPOSni 



SHOOTING FOR BOYS 




ELIPHALET REMINGTON 
The Boy Gun Maker 



SHOOTING FOR BOYS 



BY 



A. FREDERICK COLLINS 



Author of 



Manual of Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony," "Design 
and Construction of Induction Coils," 
"The Book of Stars," etc. 




NEW YORK 

MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 
1917 



Copyright, 1917, by 
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 






-^ 



ii'^ 



APR -.6. 1317 



Published April. 1917 



0CU457832 



TO MY SON 

VIRGIL DEWEY COLLINS 

WHO COLLABORATED WITH ME 
IN WRITING THIS BOOK 



PREFACE 

A WORD TO THE BOY 

YOU ought to be a shooter, for shooting is 
the greatest sport in the world. 

By this I do not mean that you should 
hunt dumb and harmless things with a rifle or a 
shotgun, for this is a far cry from true sport, and 
no shooter with a drop of sportsman*s blood in 
his veins would do it. 

But to be able to draw a bead on the bullseye 
of a swinging target at, say, twenty-five yards and 
hit it nine times out of ten, or to stand on a firing- 
line where clay pigeons are thrown by a trap at 
a speed twice as swift as real pigeons fly and to 
break them one after another, is what I call a 
sportsman's sport in every sense of the word. 

There is much more in shooting though than 
just the pleasure and the pride you get out of it 
by being an expert marksman, for it trains your 
eye to see quickly, to observe sharply, and to 
gauge distances accurately; besides, it gives your 

vii 



viii Preface 

trigger finger a deftness of touch that is little short 
of marvelous and makes it work in perfect har- 
mony with your eye. 

This is done through two sets of nerves in your 
body, which are called the afferent and the efferent 
nerves. Now, the afferent nerves carry the actions 
of everything your eye sees and your fingers feel 
to your brain, while the efferent nerves carry the 
ideas that are developed in your brain to your eye 
and fingers just as a telephone wire carries mes- 
sages along it to and away from a central station. 

When you shoot there is an instantaneous con- 
nection made between your brain and your eye and 
between your brain and your trigger finger^ First, 
your brain tells your eye to spot the target you 
want to shoot at, and the instant your eye has done 
so it flashes back the answer ; simultaneously, your 
brain sends another message to your index finger 
to pull the trigger, and this it does. 

If these subconscious desires of your brain are 
not sent, carried and received instantly, then your 
eye and finger are not properly adjusted for quick 
action, and of course you will miss the target. 
To hit what you are shooting at means that your 
eye and brain and finger work together with an 
extraordinary degree of precision and rapidity, 
and it is this kind of mental and manual practice 



Preface ix 

which target-shooting gives you as can nothing 
else that I know of in the whole category of 
exercise or sport. 

To shoot not only drives your sportsman's blood 
through your veins like an onrushing torrent and 
thereby produces the pleasantest feeling imagi- 
nable, but what is more worth while it gives you 
a cool, calculating nerve and a quick and certain 
draw which brings out the best that is in you as 
well as makes you a dead shot like unto Daniel 
Boone and Buffalo Bill. 

If you will learn to shoot according to the rules 
I have laid down in this book, you will be so pre- 
pared that should you ever be called upon to pro- 
tect your life, your home or your flag you will be 
able to give a pretty good account of yourself. 

A. Frederick Collins. 

The Antlers, Congers, New York. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. How Shooting Began . . i 

The Throwing of a Missile — ^The Dis- 
covery of the Boomerang — How to Make 
a Simple Boomerang — How to Make and 
Throw a Real Boomerang — The Discovery 
of the Sling — How to Make and Use a Good 
Sling — The Invention of the Sling-shot — 
How to Make and Use a Sling-shot — The 
Discovery of the Bow and Arrow — The 
Witchery of Archery — (A, How the Bow 
Is Made — B, Stringing the Bow — C, The 
Kind of Arrows to Use — D, How to Draw 
the Bow) — The Discovery of the Crossbow 
— The Development of the Crossbow — 
How to Make and Shoot a Crossbow. 



11. The Invention of the Gun . 22 

The Blowgun of the Savages — How to 
Make and Use a Blowgun — The Inven- 
tion of the Air Gun — How the Air Rifle 
Works — The Discovery of Gunpowder — 
How the Gun Was Invented — The Earliest 
Known Gun — The Development of the 
Modern Gun — The Matchlock Gun — The 
Touch-pan — The First Rifled Gun — The 
Wheel-lock Gun — The Flintlock Gun — The 
Blunderbuss — The Tube-lock Gun — The 
Percussion-lock Gun — The Percussion Cap 
— The Breech-loading Gun — The Cartridge 
—The Last Two Types of Guns, 
3^i 



xii Contents 

CHAPTER FAOE 

III. The Modern Gun • ♦ • 39 

Sporting Guns — (A, The Sporting Rifle 
— B, The Sporting Shotgun) — Single-shot 
Guns — The Single-shot Rifle — The Single- 
shot Shotgun — Repeating Lever Guns — 
The Repeating Lever Rifle — The Re- 
peating Lever Shotgun — Pump-Action 
Guns — The Pump-Action Rifle — The Re- 
peating Pump-Action Shotgun — Auto- 
Loading Guns — The Auto-Loading Rifle — 
The Auto-Loading Shotgun — The Kind of 
a Gun to Buy — Military Guns — The U. S. 
Springfield Rifle — Foreign Military Rifles. 

IV. The Gun for the Boy . . 59 

The Boy Who Made a Gun — And How 
He Killed a Bear — The Gun That Is Made 
for You — The Family of Boys' Guns — The 
Remington Boys' Rifles — The Single-shot 
Rifle — The Repeating Pump-Action Rifle 
— The Auto-Loading Rifle — The Winchester 
Boys' Rifles — The Single-shot Rifle — The 
Repeating Pump-Action Rifle — The Auto- 
matic Rifle — The Marlin Boys' Rifles — The 
Repeating Pump-Action Rifle — The Re- 
peating Lever-Action Rifle — The Savage 
Boys' Rifles — The Single-shot Rifle — The 
Repeating Pump-Action Rifle — The Auto- 
matic Rifle — The Stevens Boys' Rifles — 
The Single-shot Rifle — The Pump-Action 
Repeater — Shotguns for Boys. 

V. Gun Safety First ... 74 

When Every Boy Could Shoot — Gun 
Accidents in the Early Days — How Guns 
Are Now Made Safe — The Steel the Bar- 
rels Are Made Of — How the Guns Are 
Proved — Other Safety Improvements — 
The Hammer at Half-cock — Safety in Re- 



Contents xiii 

CHAPTER PAGE 

peating Rifles — Rules for Safety in 
Handling Guns — Rules for Safety in Load- 
ing a Gun — Rules for Safety in Shooting 
a Gun — How to Carry a Loaded Gun 
Safely — Rule for Owning a Gun. 

VI. Powder and Shot and Shell . 88 

When the Cartridge Came into Use — 
The Coming of the Minie Bullet — The 
Pin-fire Cartridge — Rim and Center-fire 
Cartridges — The Rim-fire Cartridge — The 
Center-fire Cartridge — Shotgun Shells — 
About Reloading Shells — Powder for 
Cartridges and Shells — Ordinary Black 
Powder — Semi-smokeless Powder — 
Smokeless, or Nitro Powder — Ammunition 
for .22-Caliber Rifles — Kinds of .22-Caliber 
Cartridges — Shot Cartridges for Rifles — 
About Buying Ammunition — Cartridges — 
Shells — Shot Cartridges for Rifles. 

VII. The Flight of a Bullet . . loi 

Internal Ballistics — The Explosion of 
the Primer — What the Powder Does — 
What Happens in the Barrel — If the 
Powder Explodes — Fouling of the Barrel 
— The Kick, Jump and Flip of a Gun — 
External Ballistics — The Part that Rifling 
Plays — Long-range Bullets — The Path of 
a Bullet — Air Resistance — The Force of 
Gravity — The Speed of a Bullet — The 
Flight of a Bullet— Drift— Windage- 
Penetration. 



VIII. How TO Be a Crack Shot . . ii6 

The Shooting Outfit You Need— The 
Boy Behind the Gun — On Learning How 
to Shoot — How to Hold a Gun — Standing 
Position — Kneeling Position— Prone Posi- 



XIV Contents 

CHAPTER PAGE 

tion — How to Aim a Rifle — Sights and 
Sighting — About Sights — About Sighting 
— When to Pull the Trigger — How to 
Practice Shooting — The Art of Snap- 
shooting — The Science of Trap-shooting — 
Trajectory, Windage and Drift Again— 
About Gun Silencers — A Last Pointer — • 
Taking Care of Your Gun — Your Cleaning 
Outfit — To Clean Your Rifle — Corrosion 
by Smokeless Powder — Removal of Me- 
tallic Fouling — When You Are All 
Through. 

IX. About Target Practice . .134 

The Shooting Gallery — A Home Shoot- 
ing Range — What Is Needed for a Range 
— The Kinds of Targets to Use — How to 
Make a Bullet Catcher — How to Make a 
Swinging Target — The Right Kind of a 
Range — Rifle Practice with Trap-thrown 
Balls — Trap-shooting with a Shotgun — 
The Sub-Target Machine Gun — Rifle 
Practice in the Armories. 

X. How TO Start a Shooting Club . 155 

In the Very Beginning — Now for Some 
Publicity — Starting Your Club — Rules for 
Organizing the Club — Some Ways to Raise 
Money — Getting the Club's Equipment — 
How to Encourage New Members — The 
System of Handicapping — Prize Shooting 
Contests — Championship Contests — How 
to Start a Trap-shooting Club. 

XI. Why Every Boy Should Shoot . 172 

Shooting as Some Folks See It — The 
Fear of Firearms — The Wanton Killing 
of Birds — Arbitration versus Prepared- 
ness — Shooting as the Boy Sees It — My 
Idea of Shooting — Military Training in 
Schools — Preparedness in Public Schools. 



CHAPTER 



Contents xv 

XII. Useful Information ... 185 

Shooting Rules for Rifle Clubs— Spe- 
cial By-laws— Competitions— Rifles and 
Ammunition — Position —Targets— Shoot- . 
ing— Scoring— Ties— Hitting the Wrong 
1 arget — Misconduct— Spotting— Defective 
Kitles and Ammunition— Dimensions of 
Man Targets— Dimensions of Bullseye 
Targets— The National Rifle Association— 
1 he Association for the Encouragement of 
1 rap-shooting. 



Appendices 

• ^' h^^r^^ ^^^^ System of Rifle Shoot- 
ing-B, Targets for Rifle Practice— C 
Telescopic Rifle Sights-D, How to Find 
the Twist of Riflmg-E, Twist of Rifling 
^ ^.^r^^'t^^^^'^^"^ .22-Caliber Rifles- 
n' wu ^* the Caliber of a Rifle Means— 
^ What the Gauge of a Shotgun Means— 
H, Smokeless Rifle Powders— I, The 
Maxim Silencer. 



193 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

liliphalet Remington, the Boy Gun Maker . Frontispiece 
FIGURE CHArlER 1 page 

1 —The Boy-Ape Throws a Stone .... 2 

2 — A Cardboard Boomerang 5 

A— The Size and Shape of a Cardboard Boomerang 5 

B— Flipping the Boomerang 5 

3 —A Real Home-Made Boomerang . . . ' . 6 

A— How to Saw the Stick 6 

B— The Finished Boomerang 6 

C— The Author Throwing an Australian Boom- 
erang 7 

4 — A Sling of Olden Days 9 

A— Leather for the Sling ...... c 

B— Strip of Slit Leather ...... c 

C — The Sling Ready for Use ..... 9 

5 — An English Longbowman 15 

6 '—An Ancient Crossbow and Method of Draw- 

ing It 18 

7 —Crossbow with Barrel and Front and Rear 

Sights 19 

8, A— The Size and Shape of the Crossbow ... 20 

B— How the Action Is Made 21 



CHAPTER II 

9, A— How an Air Rifle Is Made . 

B — Daisy Pump-Action Air Rifle 

10 —The Earliest Hand Gun to Use Powder 

11 —An Ancient Chinese Matchlock Gun . 

12 —An Old English Wheel-lock Gun . 

13 — A Revolutionary War Flintlock Gun . 

14 —An Old English Flintlock Blunderbuss 

15 — An Early Percussion-lock Gun . 

16 — The Earliest Breech-loading Gun 

xvii 



24 

25 
28 
29 
32 
33 
34 
35 
37 



xviii Illustrations 

F.OUHE CHAPTER III 

17 '—The Mechanism of a Single-shot Rifle . . 40 

18, A — Lever Action of a Repeating Rifle (Action 

Open) 42 

B — Lever Action of a Repeating Rifle (Action 

Closed) 43 

19, A — Lever Action of a Box Magazine Rifle (Action 

Closed) 44 

B — Lever Action of a Box Magazine Rifle (Action 

Open) 45 

20, A— A Pump- Action Repeating Rifle (Action 

Closed) 46 

B— A Pump- Action Repeating Rifle (Action 

Open) ........ 47 

21, A— A Pump- Action Repeating Shotgun (Action 

Closed) 48 

B— A Pump-Action Repeating Shotgun (Action 

Open) 48 

22, A — The Action of an Auto-Loading Rifle (at the 

Moment of Firing) 49 

B — The Action of an Auto-Loading Rifle (Recoil 

Driving Back Breech-Bolt and Barrel) . . 50 
C — The Action of an Auto-Loading Rifle (at the 

Moment of Ejecting Shell) .... 51 
D— The Action of an Auto-Loading Rifle (Spring 

Forcing in New Cartridge) .... 52 

23, A — The U. S. Springfield .Service Rifle (Cross- 

Sectional Side View) 55 

B — The U. S. Springfield Service Rifle (Cross- 
Sectional Top View) 56 

C— The U. S. Springfield Service Rifle (How the 

Bolt Action Works) 57 

CHAPTER IV 

24 — The Remington Family of .22-Caliber Rifles . 64 
A — No. 6, Single-shot Take-down Rifle ... 64 
B— Model No. 12, Pump-Action Hammerless Re- 
peating Take-down Rifle 64 



Illustrations xix 

FIGURE PAGE 

C— No. i6, Standard Automatic Repeater . . 64 

25 —The Winchester Family of .22-Caliber Rifles . 67 

A— Single-shot Sporting Rifle 67 

B— Model 1900, Pump- Action Repeating Rifle . 67 

C— Model 1903, Automatic Repeater .... 67 

26 — The Marlin Family of .22-Caliber Rifles . . 68 
A— 1892 Model, Repeating Lever-Action Rifle . 68 
B— Model No. 29, Pump-Action Repeating Rifle . 68 

2y — The Savage Family of .22-Caliber Rifles . . 70 
A— Model 1905, Single-shot, Bolt-Action Target 

Rifle 70 

B— Model 1903, Pump- Action, Box-Magazine 

Hammerless Repeater . . . . . .70 

C — Model 1912, Automatic Box-Magazine Rifle . 70 

28 — The Stevens Family of .22-Caliber Rifles . . 71 
A— No. 26, Crack-shot, Single-shot Rifle ... 71 
B— Visible Loading Repeating Rifle .... 71 

29 — The Ithaca Double-Barreled 20-gauge Shotgun 72 

CHAPTER V 

30 — How Gun Barrels Are Proved .... 76 

31 — The Hammer at Half-cock .... 79 
32, A— How to Carry a Loaded Gun (Sportsman's 

Style) 83 

B— How to Carry a Loaded Gun (Military Style) 85 

CHAPTER VI 

33 — Rim- and Center-Fire Cartridges .... 92 

A — A Rim-Fire Cartridge 92 

B— A Center-Fire Cartridge 92 

34 —Cross-Section View of a Shotgun Shell . . 94 

35 — Kinds of .22-Caliber Cartridges .... 97 

36 — Kinds of .22-Caliber Bullets. Arrows Show 

Weights of BB, CB, Short, Long, and Long 

Rifle Bullets 98 

37 —A .22-Caliber Rim-Fire Shot Cartridge . . 99 

CHAPTER Vn 

38 — The Explosion of a Cartridge .... 103 
A — When the Firing-Pin Strikes the Cartridge . 103 



XX Illustrations 

FIGURE PAGE 

B— The Burning Powder 103 

C— The Gases Force the Bullet from the Case . 103 

39 ^The Bullet Spins on Its Long Axis . . . 104 

40 —The Kick, Jump and Flip of a Gun . . . 108 

41 —The Path or Trajectory of a Bullet . . .112 

42 ^The Drift of a Bullet 113 

43 — The Penetration of a .22-Caliber Bullet 

(Through Five ^-Inch Boards) . . .115 

CHAPTER VIII 

44 —The Boy Behind the Gun 117 

45 —Correct Standing Position 119 

46 —Correct Kneeling Position 121 

47 —Correct Prone Position 122 

48 —Various Kinds of Sights 124 

CHAPTER IX 

49 —Two Kinds of Fixed Targets .... 136 

A— An Iron Target 136 

B— A Paper Target 136 

50 —A Bullet Catcher • • I39 

51 — Butt for a 25- and 50-Yard Rifle Range . . 143 

52 —A Target Frame 144 

53 ^A Trap for Throwing Clay Balls .... 145 

54 —A Simple Hand Trap 147 

55 —A Du Pont Hand Trap that Works Like a Gun 148 
55 —The Expert Trap for Small Ranges . . . 149 
57, A— A Single Target Field Layout . . . .150 

B — A Double Target Field Layout . . . -151 

58 —A Sub-Target Machine Gun 153 

CHAPTER X 

59 — Automatic Cartridge Counter .... 167 

APPENDIX I 

60 The Maxim Gun-Silencer 201 



SHOOTING FOR BOYS 



SHOOTING FOR BOYS 

CHAPTER I 
HOW SHOOTING BEGAN 

IT all started when the hoy-ape was being de- 
veloped into the ape-hoy away back there in 
the making of the third crust of the earth, or 
Tertiary epoch as it is called by geologists, and that 
was nearly a million years ago. 

About the middle of that dim and distant age 
the boy-ape was a tailless, narrow-nosed fellow 
who had tremendously long and powerful arms 
and by means of them he could swing himself from 
tree to tree with the agility for which his kind 
has ever since been famous and at a speed almost 
as fast as you, or I, can run. 

The Throwing of a Missile — But he was show- 
ing signs of being clever, was this boy-ape, in other 
ways than swinging in trees, and one of them was 
that he could throw a little, for he had learned how 
to grasp a stone or a stick, impart the energy of his 
muscles to it and hurl it with a good deal of force 
toward the object of his wrath, 



2 Shooting for Boys 

Mere brutish strength, though, was not enough 
to enable the boy-ape to throw a missile either 
hard or straight, for the nerves of his eyes and the 




Fig. I — The Boy- Ape Throws a Stone. 

muscles of his arm and hand lacked co-ordination, 
that is, he hadn't practiced enough to get the knack 
of making them work together smoothly. 
These crude efforts of hi? at throwing were not 



How Shooting Began 3 

wasted however, for when he had evolved into the 
ape-boy during the latter part of the Tertiary Age, 
and environment had shortened his arms and made 
them more nearly the length of the boy of today 
the old hereditary trait of throwing stood him in 
good stead and as he emerged from the forest and 
lived in a cave his sole means of protection and 
probably of obtaining food depended very largely 
on his ability to throw hard, throw straight, and to 
hit what he aimed at. 

This, then, was the very beginning of what we 
call shooting, and as the ape-boy became a reaU 
hoy — that is, a boy who could talk and think and 
do things — he was ready for an age of discovery 
and of invention. 

The Discovery of the Boomerang. — Like nearly 
all discoveries made by the early real boy the dis- 
covery of the boomerang was purely an accident, 
but unlike the ape-boy who lived before him he 
had the mental ability to improve upon any new 
thing that chanced his way. 

As an illustration, one day he picked up a small 
bent stick a couple of feet long; it was a curiously 
shapen stick, nearly flat and with a smooth end 
and he thought it would make a good throwing- 
stick for hunting. 

The first time he threw it a mighty strange thing 



4 Shooting for Boys 

happened for it missed the bird and describing a 
beautiful curve he saw it returning toward him; 
frightened he ran back of a tree and a second later 
it struck him on the head and he promptly keeled 
over. Either the stick had become alive or else 
an evil spirit was guiding it and it was a long 
time before he was brave enough to throw it 
again. 

Sometimes it would go the way of all sticks 
but once in a while it would make a return swoop. 
He experimented and finally found that what was 
needed to make it return was to hold it a certain 
way and give it a peculiar twist as it left his hand 
and when he did this the stick would loop back if 
it did not strike the mark he aimed at. And thus 
it was that the boomerang came to be. 

This strange and uncanny stick is still in use 
among the aborigines of Australia as a weapon of 
offense and defense and these savages have at- 
tained a very high degree of skill in throwing it. 

How to Make a Simple Boomerang. — ^Just to 
show the principle of the boomerang you can make 
a toy one and see for yourself how it acts. Cut 
a boomerang out of heavy cardboard about 6 
inches long and make it the exact shape shown at 
A in Fig. 2. 

To project it into the ^ir lay ^ book upon ^ 



How Shooting Began 




THEsaE mo 

SrfJJPEOF/iCflRIf' 
BOmO BOOMEMflG 



table and slip a piece of wood about an inch thick 
under one end so that the book sets in a slanting 
position. Now lay the boomerang flat on the upper 
surface of the book with 
the long end sticking out 
about 2 inches as shown 
at B in Fig. 2 and flip it 
sharply with the end of 
a pencil when it will sail 
through the air and re- 
turn to the place it 
started from, nearly. 

Magicians make an 
ordinary playing card do 
the same thing and you 
can too if you practice 
long enough. Hold a 
corner of the card be- 
tween your first and sec- 
ond fingers and let the 
other corner rest against 
the ball of your thumb; 
then give it a spinning 
twist and throw it at the same instant into the air 
and it will return to you again. 

How to Make and Throw a Real Boomerang. — 
To make a boomerang get a strip of hard wood 2 




6- ^ 

FLIPPING THE 
BOOMER/^NG- 



Fig. 2- 



A Cardboard Boom- 
erang. 



6 Shooting for Boys 

inches wide and 2 feet long and plane it down 
until it is A inch thick. 

Now cut the stick in two in the middle as shown 
at A, in Fig. 3, dovetail them together at the elbow 
and smear on plenty of good glue to make a strong 
joint. Whittle the ends to the shape shown at B, 



i£ 



5M. ON DOTTED use 




Ji'_/iOW T05/IW THE STICK 
DOVETfilL JOINT 



B' THE FINISHED 
BOOMEHRNG 



Fig. 3, A and B — A Real Home-Made Boomerang. 

and you will have a boomerang modeled after one 
now in my possession made by a native Australian. 
The original, however, is made of a bent limb of 
a tree and this of course makes it much stronger. 
To throw the boomerang grasp it by one end as 
shown at C, throw it with all your might, and as 



How Shooting Began 7 

it leaves your hand give it a circular motion as 
shown by the curved arrows in the picture, and it 
will come back to you. 

The Discovery of the Sling. — It was just after 

the middle crust of 
the earth was 
formed, or the 
Mesozic epoch as it 
is called, that the 
first Stone Age boy 
lived and to him the 
credit has been given 
of the discovery of 
the sling, the first 
device ever used as 
an aid to throwing a 
stone. 

It happened in this 
fashion: that he 
might carry a supply 
of stones with him 
the primitive boy 
must needs have 
something to put 
them in, and the pouched rat, one of the earliest 
animals that lived and who carried its young in a 
natural pocket like a kangaroo, gave him the hint 




.,i*M 



Fig. 3, C — The Author Throw- 
ing the Australian Boomerang. 



8 Shooting for Boys 

he needed and he fastened one of the skins to the 
thong which formed his belt. 

Idly swinging the pouch by the thong he let an 
end slip out of his hand when the remaining stone 
in it was thrown out with great force, and hitting 
a wild boar, it dropped him. Thus he had not only 
made a great discovery, but he had gained a dinner 
as well. After much tedious experimenting, for 
his brain was yet small, he produced the sling and 
as a means for throwing a stone with force and 
accuracy it has never been improved upon. 

If you have never made a sling and known the 
joy that the prehistoric boy felt when he found he 
could throw a stone ten times as far with it as he 
could throw it with his unaided hand, you have 
missed one of your inherited rights. And with a 
little practice you ought to be able to use a sling 
even better than he did, for you have a long line of 
ancestry, from the time of David who slew the 
giant Goliath on down through the Dark Ages, 
that was mighty in its skill with the sling, as the 
following account taken from the twentieth chap- 
ter of the Book of Judges shows. 

Look it up and you will find it is written 
there that in the town of Gibeah there were 700 
picked men in the tribe of Benjamin, every one of 
whom was left-handed and whose aim was so true 



How Shooting Began 9 

that they never missed their mark, but hit it even 
to a hair's breadth. A mighty story, I trow. 

How to Make and Use a Good Sling. — This is 
the way the boy of Bible times made his sling, and 
you can make one in the same manner. Get a piece 
of buckskin, or any other kind of strong, soft 
leather will do, and make it 2j4 inches wide and 
4 inches long, cutting slits in the middle as shown 
at A in Fig. 4. 



5LIT5 IN LBJiTHEli 




B- STRIP OF SLIT LEATHER 



•/I- LEATHER FOR 
THE 5UN0 



STONE GOES 
HER.E 

wy^sssssssss. 

LOOP 
Fig. 4 — A Sling of Olden Days. 



Next cut two strips of the same kind of leather 
2 feet long and make each strip 2j4 inches wide 
at one end and tapering to i inch wide at the 
other end. Beginning about 6 inches from the 
wide end, cut two slits into the strip as shown at 



lo Shooting for Boys 

B. Now braid the ends of these strips and sew 
the wide end of each one to one of the ends of the 
short leather with waxed thread. This done, make 
a loop of one of the braided ends as shown at C, 
and your slin£ is done. 

To use the sling place a round pebble weighing 
a couple of ounces in the slit leather, hook your 
little finger into the loop, and grasp the other end 
between your index finger and thumb. Then whirl 
the sling round in a circle a few times until it has 
gathered the needed momentum and suddenly let- 
ting go the free end the stone will be thrown with 
great force and as straight as a die if you use it 
well. 

The Invention of the Sling- shot. — The sling-shot 
is a greatly modified form of the sling of ancient 
days. It is an invention of recent date, for the 
process of vulcanizing rubber was not known until 
1842, when it was discovered by Charles Good- 
year, and hence the sling-shot must have followed 
at even a later date. 

How to Make and Use a Sling-shot. — A sling- 
shot is made of (a) a crotch, (6) a pair of rubber 
strands and (c) an oval piece of leather. The 
crotch can be made of a Y-shaped limb of a tree, 
or sawed from a board and whittled into shape, 
or it can be made of heavy twisted iron wire. 



How Shooting Began ii 

For the rubbers use a pair of pure rubber bands 
{para is the best) ^ inch wide and y/2 inches 
long, and the leather should be about J4 inch wide 
and 2 inches long, and cut a slit in the middle J^ 
inch long. Fasten the leather to the rubber bands 
and these to the prongs of the crotch with short 
pieces of strong fish line. 

To use the sling-shot put a small, smooth round 
stone in the center of the leather and hold it tight 
with the fingers of your right hand, that is, if you 
are right-handed. Pull back the leather with the 
stone in it to nearly the stretching length of the 
rubber and then taking aim suddenly let go, when 
the stone will shoot forth with great speed and a 
whizzing sound caused by the stone cutting the air. 

The Discovery of the Bow and Arrow. — ^When 
the bright star Vega in the constellation of Lyra, 
and which is directly over your head at 9 o'clock 
on an August night, was the pole-star — that is, 
when it was in the place where the North Star 
Is now — boys and men were still making and 
using stone tools and implements, and that was 
about 14,000 years ago. 

This recent Stone Age boy was playing with the 
green limb of a tree which he had broken off and 
bending it he thought the tremendous thought of 
keeping it bent by tying its ends with a cord of 



12 Shooting for Boys 

sinew and thus it was he became the discoverer 
of the stringed musical instrument and a weapon 
of the chase and of warfare at one and the same 
time. 

He found by picking the string it would twang 
out a sound that thrilled him even as an urchin of 
today is thrilled by the music of a street piano. By 
trumming on the stretched sinew with a smaller 
stick he produced a new musical effect. 

But his greatest achievement was when he held 
one end of a stick against the sinew and drawing 
it back he would let it slip when it would shoot to 
a distance of twenty or more feet. The bow and 
arrow had been discovered, and then on down 
through the ages of savagery and medievalism it 
was experimented with and improved upon until 
by the time the Battle of Agincourt was fought 
in 141 5 it had reached its highest point of per- 
fection and the men who drew the longbow in those 
days were the strongest and most skillful bowmen 
the world has ever seen. 

The Witchery of Archery — It was a long time 
after the bow and arrow had given way to fire- 
arms before they were again taken up by the pale- 
faces, but this time it was a weapon of peace 
rather than one of warfare. 

At various periods archery became a popular 



How Shooting Began 13 

sport for the exercise it offered the muscles and 
its value in training the eye has persisted to this 
day. Archery outfits can be bought of dealers in 
sporting goods,^ and there are archery clubs to be 
found in several of the larger cities. 

How the Bow is Made. — Get a good clear stick 
of yew, or hickory will do, y^ inch thick, i^ inches 
wide, and as long as you are tall. Trim it down 
with a spoke-shave, or your knife, until the stick 
is nearly oval around the middle for about 18 
inches, taper the ends of it down until they are 
nearly flat and are y^ inch thick and % wide, and 
then cut a notch on each side of the stick about 3^ 
inch from each end. 

Stringing the Bow. — A selected hemp string 
about y^ inch in diameter should be used. Loop 
the ends of the string around the notches in the 
ends of the stick so that the string will be about 
5 inches from the bow when measured at the 
middle. When not in use the bow should be un- 
strung or else it will become fatigued, as it is 
called in physics, and so lose some of its elasticity; 
and when the bow is put away for the season it is 
a good plan to rub it well with oil. 

The Kind of Arrows to Use. — ^Your arrows 

*A11 archery equipment can be bought from the Abercrom- 
bie and Fitch Co., 53 W. 36th street, N. Y. C. 



14 Shooting for Boys 

should be made of clear, straight shafts of ash, 
deal, poplar or other whitewood, and these should 
be about % inch in diameter and 2 feet 6^ inches 
long. Cut a notch just large enough to fit the bow- 
string and J4 inch deep in one end and sharpen the 
other end a little. 

The haft, or notched end, must be feathered, 
and this is done by splitting a feather, cutting the 
edge off straight, making it about % inch wide and 
5 inches long and scraping the harhs of the feather 
from the quill, or shaft as it is called, for a dis- 
tance of % inch on the large end of the quill and 
J4 inch on the small end. 

Fasten two of these feathers — three are better 
— around the head of the arrow at equally spaced 
points and this can be done by holding the feathers 
in place and wrapping the ends with strong silk 
thread. 

How to Draw the Bow. — When you have picked 
the mark you want to shoot at face it so that your 
eye and the mark are in a line. Stand as straight 
as an Indian with your left foot in front. Hold 
the bow near the middle with your left hand, slip 
the notched end of the arrow on the bowstring with 
your right hand, and holding it there between your 
index and middle finger bring the bow to a vertical 
position as shown in Fig. 5 ; at the same time draw 



How Shooting Began 



15 




' Fig. 5— An English Longbowman. 



1 6 Shooting for Boys 

the arrow back to about two-thirds of its length. 

When ready to shoot the shaft of the arrow 
should be in a Hne with your eye and the mark. 
To take aim look at the mark and not at the arrow 
and the instant you get your aim let the arrow go. 
The place you hit will show how well you can 
use a bow and arrow. The Maricopa and Pima 
Indians of Arizona are so skillful they can shoot 
and kill a jack rabbit with a pointed arrow while 
chasing them on their mustangs. 

The Discovery of the Crossbow. — It was in the 
Middle Ages that the longbow reached its greatest 
perfection, and the time was ripe for an improve- 
ment in the art of shooting. There were wonder- 
ful tournaments held by the bowmen of the various 
roving companies, and there was one archer whose 
mighty prowess was far-famed, for in virtue of his 
great strength he could bend a powerful bow and 
shoot an arrow farther than any one he had yet 
contended with. 

At one of these tournaments was a doughty 
marksman of small size who had a shorter and 
stiffer bow than those commonly used and as 
the others shot he watched the flight of the arrows 
with small interest. When his turn came he sat 
him down upon the ground, braced his feet against 
the bow, slipped an arrow on the string and with 



How Shooting Began 17 

the tremendous leverage thus gained he bent the 
bow until it was almost double. 

To the surprise of every one except those of his 
own company his arrow flew nearly twice as far 
as that of the giant bowman bracketed as his peer. 
It was in this strange way that the principle of the 
crossbow was discovered. 

The Development of the Crossbow. — After the 
first raw idea, or inductive discovery as it is called, 
had disclosed to the thinking archer the principle 
of the crossbow it was not long before other 
geniuses began to improve upon his scheme for the 
age of invention and of iron was at hand. 

The simplest form of crossbow was a straight 
wooden stick with the bow fixed to one end and 
a notch cut near the other end to hold the string 
after it was drawn back, but it was hard to re- 
lease the string and make it catch the arrow, and 
this soon led to the making of a trigger to release 
the bowstring. 

Following this great improvement came the 
grooved guide for the arrow, which corresponds 
to the barrel of a gun, for the purpose of making 
the arrow shoot straight. It was perfectly natural 
that the next improvement should be a gunstock, so 
that the crossbow could be rested against the shoul- 
der, and then came the sights. 



i8 



Shooting for Boys 



By this time the bow was made of steel instead 
of wood, and since steel is much stronger and is 
more elastic than yew wood, the bow was made 




Fig. 6 — An Ancient Crossbow and Method of Drawing It. 



much shorter and thicker and to tell them apart 
when speaking the yew bow was called the long- 
bow, while the other was known as a crossbow, or 
arbalest. Finally the springs were made so short 
and stiff that a powerful mechanical device was 
needed for pulling the bowstring, and when this 
was invented and applied to the crossbow it took 
on the appearance shown in Fig. 6. 



How Shooting Began 19 

Other small improvements were made until the 
crossbow had a gunstock, a steel barrel, an im- 
proved trigger with trigger guard and front and 
rear sights, all of which is shown in Fig. 7; in 
fact, as you will plainly see, it was but one step 
removed from a firearm. All that was needed was 
an explosive to shoot a ball, a means for lighting 
it, and the brain of a genius to point the way to do 
it, and this was soon forthcoming. 

How to Make and Shoot a Crossbow. — From 
an oak or other hardwood board, i inch thick, 8 




Fig. 7 — Crossbow with Barrel and Front and Rear Sights. 

inches wide and 3 feet long, cut out a stock and 
barrel as shown at A in Fig. 8. Measure off 12 
inches from the end of the stock and cut out a 
slot with a chisel ^ inch wide and 3 inches long 
clear through from the top to the bottom. Now 
with a ^-inch round chisel starting at the end of 
the barrel cut a deep groove for the arrow to rest 
in, and then cut a notch in the end of the barrel for 
^^e bow. 



20 



Shooting for Boys 



The trigger can be made of wood, but brass is 
better. Get a J^-inch piece of square brass rod 
and cut off a piece for the lock (see B, Fig. 8), 
2j4 inches long, make two notches in it as shown 
in the cut and drill a }^-inch hole in the lower 




G/^OOVJE FORmROW 
TO REST IN 



Fig. 8, A — The Size and Shape of the Crossbow. 

end ; cut off another piece for the trigger 3 inches 
long and drill a ^-inch hole i inch from 
the top end. Set these pieces in the slot of 
the gunstock exactly as shown at B, drive a nail 
through the stock and the hole in the lock and 
another one through the stock and the trigger to 
serve as pivots, and cut the ends off close up to 
the stock. 



How Shooting Began 



21 



The action of the lock is this: when the string 
is pulled back and caught in the notch of the lock 
it has of course a tendency to pull the lock for- 
ward but it is prevented from so doing by the 
end of the trigger which is thrown over into the 
notch. 

When the trigger is pulled the upper end slips 
out of the notch, the bowstring pulls the lock for- 
ward and out of the way when the string hits the 




Fig. 8, B— How the Action Is Made. 

arrow, carries it with great force along the groove 
iathe barrel, and shoots it into the air. 

To shoot the crossbow set the trigger and lock, 
and put an arrow into the groove; rest the stock 
firmly against your shoulder and sighting along 
the arrow pull the trigger. 



CHAPTER II 
THE INVENTION OF THE GUN 

ALMOST at as early a date as the invention of 
the bow and arrow another and an entirely 
^ different weapon was discovered by the 
primitive boy, and this is what we call a hlowgun. 
It was simply a hollow reed in which a small stone 
was placed and then blown out with great force 
by the mouth. 

The Blowgun of the Savages. — Powerful blow- 
guns are used at the present time by some of the 
savage Indian tribes of South America and the 
Dyaks, an aboriginal race of Borneo. 

The blowgun used by them is made of a reed, 
or the stem of a small palm, has a bore of ^ or 
y2 an inch in diameter, and is from 8 to 12 feet 
long. Instead of stones arrows are used in them, 
and these vary in length from ij4 to 18 inches. 

The arrows of the South American Indian are 
made from the spine of a palm and the sharp 
points are poisoned with curari and then notched 
to make them break off in the wound. A bit of 
soft down from the silk-cotton tree is wrapped 

22 



The Invention of the Gun 23 

round the shaft of each arrow to make it fit the 
tube air-tight. The Dyaks point the heads of their 
arrows with sharp fish teeth and poison them 
with upas juice, while the shaft is fitted with a piece 
of pith to make it fit the tube exactly. 

Both races blow these arrows with great force 
and accuracy and can easily hit and kill a fellow at 
a distance of over 100 feet. 

How to Make and Use a Blowgun. — Get a per- 
fectly straight tin tube, or better a seamless brass 
tube, with a Y/^-moh bore and 18 inches long. Use 
pellets of putty and blow quick and hard. With 
very little practice you can hit the bullseye of a 
target at 50 or 60 feet as certainly as you can with 
a rifle, and it is great sport to use it to shoot at a 
mark. 

The Invention of the Air Gun The air gun was 

invented in France about 1768. These early guns 
were operated by compressing the air in a cylinder 
fastened to the barrel of the gun and then releasing 
the air behind the bullet. This scheme was so hard 
to work that the air gun did not become popular 
until the spring type of gun was made in this coun- 
try along in the '70's. 

The first air rifles were made by H. M. Quacken- 
bush of Herkimer, New York, and these were of 
the spring type ; that is, the spring was compressed 



24 Shooting for Boys 

by means of a lever and when the trigger was 
pulled the plunger pushes forward and compressed 
the air. To Charles F. Lefever of Plymouth, 
Mich., is due the high development of the air 
rifles on the market today. 

How the Air Rifle Works — The operation of the 
No. 25 pump-action Daisy air rifle, which is shown 

/IBUTMENT 

flIRTUBE 
jHOLE J>LUN&ER 

PLUNGEJi 




M/IG/IZJNE 



Fig. 9, A — How an Air Rifle Is Made. 

at A in Fig. 9, is like this: when the plunger is 
retracted by pulling back the slide, the mainspring 
is compressed and the plunger is made to engage 
the trigger; then the slide, or handhold, is returned 
to its normal position. When the trigger is pulled 
and the plunger released the action of the main- 
spring pushes the plunger forward and compresses 
the air between the plunger and the abutment. 

During the action of loading, the air-tube, which 
telescopes inside of the shooting barrel, is with- 
drawn and permits a bullet to drop from the maga- 
zine into the shooting barrel. After the gun is 



The Invention of the Gun 25 

fired the air that is compressed passes through a 
small hole at the back of the air-tube and enters 
directly behind the bullet. The shooting, or true 
barrel, is swaged, that is, pressed, directly in front 
of and behind the point where the bullet enters 
the barrel and the bullet is kept from rolling out 
by this means. 

When the plunger rushes forward the air-tube 
pushes the bullet through the swaging in the barrel 
thus making all the bullets of the same size. The 




Fig. 9, B— A Daisy Pump- Action Air Rifle. 



air in this kind of a gun is compressed after the 
trigger is pulled. A Daisy pump- action repeater 
is shown at B, Fig. 9. It weighs 3}^ pounds, 
sells for $3.50, and has a shooting range of from 
125 to 150 feet. 

The Discovery of Gunpowder. — Since the word 
gun is taken to mean any device having a tube and 
through which a missile of any kind is shot, the 
ancient crossbow which was fitted with a barrel 
and shot stones or bolts could without any great 
stretch of the imagination be called a gun. But it 
was the discovery of gunpowder which made the 



26 Shooting for Boys 

invention of the gun possible as we know it today. 
The discovery of gunpowder came about in a very 
curious way. The love of Chinese boys — and this 
includes the men, for they are only boys grown 
up — for fireworks is well known and in trying to 
find new and startling effects in colored lights and 
scintillations the civilized Chinese boy carelessly 
mixed some powdered saltpetre, charcoal and sul- 
phur together and inclosing it in a thick paper 
tube, like a Roman candle, he lit it. 

And when he had recovered from the shock of 
the explosion he found that he had made not only 
the first firecracker, but what was of more impor- 
tance that he had discovered the first explosive and 
that was gunpowder; and all of this happened 
about the year 600. 

How the Gun Was Invented. — About 600 years 
after the discovery of gunpowder — that is, in the 
year 1200 — an Arab boy traveling in China learned 
from a Chinese boy the secret of making both 
gunpowder and firecrackers and tucking these ideas 
in the back of his head he carried them home with 
him to Bagdad. 

The fact that the gunpowder burned gently in the 
open air, but caused an explosion when it was con- 
fined in a tube, interested the thinking Arabs and 
one of them — most likely a boy — tried the experi- 



The Invention of the Gun 27 

ment of putting some of the gunpowder in a metal 
tube one end of which was closed up. A fuse, also 
made of gunpowder, was led to the powder inside 
the barrel and a round stone was dropped into the 
tube. 

When the fuse was lit it ignited the powder and 
— bang! — the stone shot out, the recoil kicked the 
tube back, and if the Arab inventor lived to tell 
the tale he was indeed lucky; but anyway he was 
the inventor of the explosive gun. 

In turn the invention of the gun was carried 
back to China and the priming-hole, or touch-hole 
as it is called, that is the small hole near the breech, 
or closed end of the tube into which gunpowder is 
poured to prime and fire the gun, was the next im- 
provement in order. The first recorded use of the 
gun in warfare was in 1234, when the Chinese 
army under Genghis Khan employed it. 

Nearly forty years later Marco Polo, an Italian 
boy traveler, went to China, and when he returned 
to Italy he told a wonderful story about the guns 
and gunpowder he had seen, and it was this boy 
who really introduced the explosive into Europe. 
About sixty years later a powder-mill was set up in 
Germany, and shortly after that guns fired with 
gunpowder were used at the Battle of Crecy, which 
was fought in 1346. 



28 Shooting for Boys 

The Earliest Known Gun — One of the oldest 
guns in existence is a Chinese hand-fuse gun in the 
collection of Francis Bannerman of New York 
City. 

This ancient gun is merely a bronze tube having 
a bore i inch in diameter and a barrel 12 inches 
long. It is cast in one piece of metal and has a 
wooden haft, or handle, 10 inches long fixed to and 
in a line with the barrel so that it can be held and 
aimed. A swivel is also fixed to it which permits 




Fig. 10 — The Earliest Hand Gun to Use Powder. 

it to be rested on any convenient object and steadied 
when it is fired, all of which is shown in Fig. 10. 

The barrel is reinforced with a piece of wood on 
either side held in place with split bamboo wrapped 
around it. It was fired with a match, which means 
a slow-burning fuse, and this was held in the hand 
and applied to the touch-hole. 

This extremely crude gun, hoary with age and a 
relic of the dead past, was probably made very 
shortly after the introduction of guns for the pur- 



The Invention of the Gun 29 

pose of warfare. Old and crude as it is it was 
nevertheless the forerunner of the modern gun. 

The Development of the Modern Gun Since 

the last and most improved crossbows had, as we 
have seen in Chapter I, a lock, which means the 
trigger mechanism, a gunstock and a barrel, it 
required small inventive ability to add these fea- 
tures to the Chinese gun. To put on a trigger to 




Fig. II — An Ancient Chinese Matchlock Gun. 

fire the gun seemed to be the hardest part of the 
early gunsmith's job and it was the most necessary, 
but all these things and other inventions were 
worked out step by step as we shall see forthwith. 

The Matchlock Gun.— The first gun that had a 
trigger was called a matchlock gun, or just match- 
lock for short, in virtue of the fact that the powder 
was lighted with a match — that is, a fuse — which 
was held in a lock, or lever, and which was in turn 
worked by a trigger as shown in Fig. 11. 

When the trigger was pulled it brought the lock 
down to the touch-hole and coming in contact with 



30 Shooting for Boys 

the powder ignited it, and this was a good deal 
safer than for the musketeer to light the powder 
by applying the match with his hand. The word 
musket, by the way, comes from the French 
mousquet, which in their language means gun, but 
any kind of a smooth-bore gun was known as a 
musket. 

This early type of gun, which was invented in 
1476, was fitted with sights and a fairly well 
shaped stock, so that it could be easily and firmly 
rested against the shoulder. 

The Touch-pan. — A further improvement in the 
matchlock was the introduction of the touch-pan, 
as it was called ; the pan was fastened to the barrel 
and a small hole was drilled through it to the 
touch-hole when both were filled with powder. 
When the trigger was pulled the cock holding the 
match or fuse fell on the powder in the pan and lit 
it and the fire ran through the touch-hole into the 
barrel as before. 

The stock of the gun had also been improved 
and the butt end was made in the shape of a cres- 
cent in order to fit the shoulder better. The match- 
lock was loaded with powder, then some paper was 
rammed down on top of it with a ramrod, a lead 
bullet was loaded in the gun and more paper was 
rammed down on it to hold it in place. It was 



The Invention of the Gun 31 

necessary for every gunner to carry along a ram- 
rod, matches, bullets and a powderhorn. 

The First Rifled Gun. — While a rifle is generally 
understood at the present time to mean a gun which 
shoots a cartridge — see the chapter on Ammuni- 
Hon — yet any gun which has grooves cut in the 
inside of the barrel is a rifle. 

About 1498 a gunmaker of Leipsic, Germany, 
invented the rifle, that is, he was the first to cut 
spiral grooves in the barrel, the purpose of which is 
to give the bullet a rotary motion after it has left 
the barrel and so make it shoot straighter. Since 
the operation of cutting the grooves is called rifling 
it is easy to see how the rifle got its name. 

Although guns with rifled barrels were made at 
various times for many years after rifling was in- 
vented, it was not until the Revolutionary War in 
1776 that its use became at all popular. The rifle 
as it is made and used at the present time is ex- 
plained in the next chapter. 

The Wheel-lock Gun — The next noteworthy im- 
provement in guns was the invention of the wheel- 
lock (see Fig. 12), in or about 15 10. A few of 
these guns were made with smooth bores, but the 
larger part of them were rifled, and so part of them 
were muskets and the others were rifles, though 
they shot the same kind of bullets. 



32 Shooting for Boys 

The wheel-lock was the first gun to do away 
with the lighted fuse of the matchlock. It was 
formed of a small steel wheel about % inch wide 
and having a milled periphery, or rim; a spring 
was fastened to the wheel and when the trigger 




Fig. 12— An Old English Wheel-Lock Gun. 

was pulled it released the spring which made the 
wheel go round. 

A bit of flint was fixed over the wheel, and this 
rubbed against the rough edge of the latter when 
it turned, thus making a lot of sparks which ig- 
nited the powder in the Hash-pan and the fire was 
carried to the barrel. The wheel-lock was slow in 
operation because it had to be wound nearly every 
time it was used. It was invented in 1525. 

The Flintlock Gun. — Curiously enough no fur- 
ther improvement of the gun was made in the next 
hundred years or so, which is pretty good evidence 
that the wheel-lock gave a very fair measure of 
satisfaction, and then came the flintlock gun, which 
was invented in Spain about 1625. It is shown in 
Fig. 13. 



The Invention of the Gun ^ 33 

The flintlock worked on the same principle as the 
wheel-lock, that is, a flint and steel were struck 
together to make the sparks, but the construction 
of the flintlock was quite simple in that the flint 
was held in the jaws of the cock and when the 
trigger was pulled it struck the steel cover of the 




Fig. 13 — A Revolutionary War Flintlock Gun. 

pan, opened it, and the sparks ignited the touch 
powder in it. 

Flintlock guns were made with both smooth- 
bore and rifled barrels, though the former were the 
most common, and both of these were loaded with 
powder and bullet just as the early matchlock and 
wheel-lock guns were. 

The Blunderbuss. — Do you remember the pic- 
ture of the Pilgrim Fathers going to church, 
shortly after they landed at Plymouth Rock in 
1620, and each one carrying along with his Bible 
a queer-looking gun to protect himself and family 
from the Indians ? Well, the kind of a gun he car- 
ried is called a blunderbuss, or scatter gun, and 
some of them were made with wheel-locks, while 



34 Shooting for Boys 

others were made with matchlocks for firing the 
powder. 

The blunderbuss, as shown in Pig. 14, is a gun 
having a short barrel, with a large bore and a 
funnel-shaped muzzle. It was loaded with shot — 
that is, pellets made of lead — a number of these 




Fig. 14— An Old English Flintlock Blunderbuss. 

being used instead of a single bullet, and when the 
gun was fired the flanged mouth spread the shot — 
and also the Indians — for at short range it did 
great execution. 

The Dutch called this gun a donder-bus be- 
cause it made a loud noise when it was fired ; now 
since donder in their language means thunder and 
bus means box it has come to be called by the 
elegant and euphonious name of blunderbuss. 

It is no longer made as a gun, but the funnel- 
shaped barrel is still used by magicians, who find 
it a valuable aid in disappearing small articles in 
a big noise and in a cloud of smoke. What is of 
greater importance is to know that the blunderbuss 
is the daddy of the modern shotgun. 



The Invention of the Gun 35 

The Tube-lock Gun. — The next improvement in 
the firing lock of guns was a real invention, for it 
did away with the uncertain and troublesome flint 
and steel. 

In the touch-hole of the gun a primer of ful- 
minate powder was inserted, and when the cock, 
or hammer as it was now called, struck the primer 
the blow exploded it, and this in turn fired the 




Fig. 15 — An Early Percussion-Lock Gun. 



powder in the barrel. The fulminate, which is a 
compound of fulminic acid, is violently explosive, 
and this was contained in a copper tube which was 
set in the touch-hole. 

The Percussion-lock Gun. — Following a few 
small improvements on the tube primer gun came 
the mushroom percussion cap gun. This gun was 
made with a nipple tube screwed into the touch- 
hole as shown in Fig. 15. The percussion cap was 
a brass or copper tube with a flange on it, and the 
tube which had the fulminate powder in it was 
slipped into the touch-hole in the nipple, the flange 
preventing it from going in too far and permitting 
it to be extracted easily. 



36 Shooting for Boys 

The Percussion Cap. — The next step in improv- 
ing the gun was to make a simple brass cap to fit 
over the nipple and to put a thin film of fulminating 
mercury and chlorate of potash in the closed end. 
The percussion cap type of gun came into use about 
1830. 

Up to this time all guns had been muzzle-load- 
ing, that is, they were loaded from the muzzle of 
the barrel. This was done by flouring a charge of 
powder into the barrel and then ramming down a 
heavy wad of paper on top of it; the bullet or shot 
was then dropped in on the wad and another wad 
of paper was rammed down to keep the lead in 
place. 

These operations were performed with a long, 
straight rod of iron called a ramrod which the 
gunner always carried along with him, and to get 
it out of the way when not in use it was slipped 
through a couple of rings under the gun. 

The Breech-loading Gun. — Shortly after the per- 
cussion cap came into use a great change was made 
in the design and construction of the gun which 
made the fine, quick-firing guns of the present day 
possible and this included two separate and dis- 
tinct inventions each of which was dependent on 
the other. The earliest type of breech-loader is 
shown in Fig. 16. 



The Invention of the Gun 37 

These two inventions were ( i ) the breech-load- 
ing gun and (2) the cartridge which contained the 
charge. To make the gun so that it could be loaded 
at the breech it had to be broken^ that is, the barrel 
had to be hinged at the lock in order to load a 
cartridge into it. 

The cartridge was made of a flanged brass case 
in which the fulminate cap, the powder and the ball 




Fig. 16 — The Earliest Breech-Loading Gun. 

were placed. The cap was in the center of the 
back of the cartridge and when the firing-pin of 
the hammer struck the cap it exploded by percus- 
sion. 

The Last Two Types of Guns. — After the 
cartridge was invented two general types of guns 
came into use and these are known as (i) the 
rifle and (2) the shotgun. 

The rifle is a gun of quite small bore, has a rifled 
barrel, and uses a cartridge with a bullet, while 
the shotgun is a gun having a large, smooth bore 
and uses a shell, that is, a large cartridge in which 
shot are loaded. 

After the invention of the single-shot breech- 



38 Shooting for Boys 

loading gun, the cartridge magazine gun which 
would shoot a number of rounds invited the atten- 
tion of inventors, though the idea of a repeating 
gun was not at all new, but the means were at hand 
to fulfill the conditions required and the repeating 
gun came forth, as we shall presently see. 



CHAPTER III 
THE MODERN GUN 

WHILE there are many different makes of 
guns on the market, all of them come 
under two general classes and these are 
(i) sporting guns and (2) military guns. 

Sporting Guns. — Again sporting guns, which 
mean guns made especially for pleasure purposes 
such as target-shooting and game hunting, can be 
divided into two sub-classes, and these are (A) the 
sporting rifle and (B) the sporting shotgun. 

Further, there are four different kinds of rifles 
as well as of shotguns, and these are known from 
each other by their actions, that is, the manner in 
which they work. Named these guns are (a) the 
single-shot rifle and shotgun; (b) the repeating 
lever action rifle and shotgun; (c) the repeating 
pump action rifle and shotgun; and {d) the auto- 
loading rifle and shotgun. 

Single-shot Guns.— TA^ Single-shot Rifle: The 
single-shot gun, as you will gather from its name, 
has to be loaded every time a shot is fired. The 
action of an ordinary single-shot rifle is shown in 

39 



40 Shooting for Boys 

Fig. 17. Now let's see how this gun works, and 
so we'll start at the beginning and suppose that 
you have just slipped a cartridge into the firing 
chamber; this done you close the finger lever which 
pushes the breech-block back over the chamber, and 

Bf^EECHBLOCK 
FiRINGCH/JMBER 

\ 




£XTR/iCTOR 

se/r 



FINGER LEVER. TRIGGER 
Fig. 17 — The Mechanism of a Single-Shot Rifle. 

to fire the gun all you have to do is to pull the 
hammer back to full-cock and pull the trigger. 

Having fired the gun the empty cartridge of 
course still remains in the firing chamber; when 
you push the finger lever down the breech-block is 
pulled down with it and this shoves the hammer 
back to half-cock, which means that the sear 
catches in the lower notch of the hammer. 

When the trigger is in this position it can't be 



The Modern Gun 41 

pulled, hence the hammer is locked and the gun 
can't go off prematurely; this scheme of locking 
the hammer was one of the first real safety devices 
that was applied to guns, and it is a good one. 

At the same time the finger lever is pushed 
down the extractor slides forward and pulls the 
cartridge out of the chamber a little way, when you 
can pull it all the way out with your fingers. Now 
slip a new cartridge into the chamber, and you are 
ready to fire again. 

The firing mechanism of this and all other guns 
is fitted in the breech-lock or bolt and is formed 
of a pin, called a firing-pin, which slides through 
it. When the hammer strikes the outside of the 
breech-block it drives the firing-pin up against the 
cartridge and so explodes it. 

The Single-shot Shotgun. — The use of the finger 
lever on the single-shot shotgun has never been 
popular, and for this reason this type of gun is 
made a little different from the single-shot rifle just 
described. 

Although the trigger mechanism is about the 
same as that of the single-shot rifle, the ejecting 
system for throwing out the used shell is quite 
different. To follow the action of the ejector, as 
the whole ejecting system is called, let's suppose 
that a cartridge which has just been fired is still 



42 Shooting for Boys 

in the chamber of the barrel, the latter in the 
shotgun being hinged near the breech. 

In this gun a catch is released by hand, when 
the barrel breaks at the breech and tilts up and as 
it does so it forces the hammer to half-cock and the 
extractor, which in most guns slides along the bot- 

EXTMQTQR, 
'/IMMER 




\JF/NGE/Z LEVER 

Fig. i8, A — Lever Action of a Repeating Rifle (Action 
Open). 

tom of the barrel, catches the rim of the cartridge 
and flips it clear out of the barrel. 

A new cartridge is then slipped into the cham- 
ber, the barrel is closed up and the hammer can 
be drawn back to full-cock. 

Repeating Lever Guns — The Repeating Lever 
RiUe: The repeating lever rifle is a big improve- 



The Modern Gun 43 

ment over the single-shot rifle in that a large num- 
ber of shots can be fired without reloading the gun, 
the number depending on the length of the maga- 
zine which holds the cartridges and the caliber of 
the cartridges used. 

A cross-section view of a typical repeating lever 
action rifle is shown at A and B in Fig. 18. In this 

EMPTY SHELL 

FIRIN&PIN HAMMER 




SPIRfiLM/i&/}ZINE\ TRIO&. 

Fig. 18, B — Lever Action of a Repeating Rifle (Action 
Closed). 

kind of rifle the cartridges are held in a tubular 
magazine which is fixed to and under the barrel and 
extends its full length. At A, in Fig. 18, the rifle 
is shown with the finger lever open. 

The action of the rifle is like this: the spiral 
feed spring in the tube of the magazine forces a 
cartridge into the carrier, and when you press the 
finger lever down the carrier, with the cartridge in 
it, is moved upward toward the chamber; at the 



44 Shooting for Boys 

same time the breech-bolt and ejector, which are 
made in one piece, slides, back and carrying the 
empty cartridge with it the latter is thrown out of 
the top ; while this action is taking place the ham- 
mer is forced back to full-cock. 

When the finger lever is pulled up into place, as 
shown at B, in Fig. i8, the breech-bolt shoves the 



BREECH BOLT 



H/=IMMER 




CmRlER 
' SPRING- 



FINGER LE^ER 
Fig. 19, A — Lever Action of a Box Magazine Rifle (Action 
Closed). 

cartridge from the carrier into the chamber and 
pushes the carrier down into position again, when 
the spiral spring in the magazine presses another 
cartridge into it. 

Another and most important kind of lever-action 
rifle uses what is known as a box magazine. You 
can get a very good idea of the way in which this 
rifle works by looking at the cross-section views 
A and B, Fig. 19. 



The Modern Gun 



45 



The carrier in this gun is operated by a spring, 
and it keeps on feeding cartridges into the chamber 
at each action of the lever, as long as there are car- 
tridges in the magazine. Clips carrying five car- 
tridges are furnished for this rifle and all that is 

FIRING CHAMBER, BREECH BOLT 



H/JMMER 




CARRIER SPRING- 
CARRIER 
rjNGERLEVER. 



Fig. 19, B — Lever Action of a Box Magazine Rifle (Action 
Open). 



needed to reload the gun is to slip a new clip into 
the magazine. 

The Repeating Lever Shotgun. — The action of 
the repeating lever shotgun is very nearly like that 
of the repeating rifle in the main features, al- 
though there are, of course, some differences in the 
smaller parts. 

As an illustration in one of the repeating lever 
shotguns on the market the breech-bolt is entirely 
enclosed, and instead of sliding straight back it 



46 Shooting for Boys 

slides downward with a rotary motion; and is just 
the same with the exception of a few other minor 
things. 

Pump- Action Guns — The Pump-Action Rifle: A 
pump-action gun is better than a lever-action gun, 
since with the former you never have to take your 

SLIDE LEVEf^ BREECH BOLT 
FJRIN& PIN 




OR FORE /I RM C/tRRIER TRIGGER 
Fig. 20, A — A Pump- Action Repeating Rifle (Action Closed). 

finger off of the trigger and you can often make 
shots with it that you would lose with a gun of the 
latter kind. 

A pump-action rifle is shown at A and B, in Fig. 
20. The action of the rifle is shown closed at A 
and open at B. Looking at these cuts you will see 
that when the slide handle, or forearm, is pulled 
back toward the breech it forces a cartridge into 
the carrier; with the same movement the breech- 
bolt carrying the empty cartridge with it is forced 
back, and this pushes the hammer back to full- 
cock. 



The Modem Gun 47 

As the handle is brought back into place the 
breech-bolt pushes the cartridge into the chamber 
of the barrel and the carrier is forced down into 
position ready for another cartridge. 

Another kind of pump-action rifle is hammer- 
less, and ejects the cartridge out of the side in- 

F/mem ^^^^^^^ breechbolt 




SUDE HANDLE' 

SLIDE LEVEH fg,^^^^ 

Fig. 20, B — A Pump- Action Repeating Rifle (Action Open). 

stead of out through the top. This rifle also has 
the advantage of having a solid breech-block in- 
stead of a movable one, and this considerably les- 
sens the danger of the back-firing of the cartridge. 

The side ejection of cartridges offers another 
good feature in that the empty cartridges are 
thrown out away from your face. 

The 'Repeating Pump-Action Shotgun. — The re- 
peating pump-action shotgun is even more simple 
in its operation than the pump-action rifle. By 
referring to A and B, Fig. 21, you will see at once 
that the carrier of the rifle and the shotgun work 



48 Shooting for Boys 

a little differently from each other. The carrier in 
the shotgun has a rocker action when the slide 

^MPTY SHELL IN 
SLIDE HmOLE^'If^lNGCH/^MBER BREECH BOLT 
LEVER ^ \ y H/IMMER 



MfiGflZINE 
SPRING 




SLIDE HmOLE ^ SHELL ^^^^^'^^ 

TRIGGER 

Fig, 21, A— A Pump- Action Repeating Shotgun (Action 

Closed). 

handle is pulled back, that is, the carrier rocks 
down below the frame of the gun and catches the 
shell which the magazine spring forces into it. 

FIRING CHmSER ^^'P^ LEVER 

EXTR^OR / BREECHBOLT 

TT ' \ /^^^ ^^H/iMMER 




SLIDE H/iNDLE/ CARRIER 
LOADED SHELL 



TRIGGER 



Fig. 21, B— A Pump- Action Repeating Shotgun (Action 
Open). 

When this action takes place the breech-bolt 
slides back, carrying the empty cartridge with it, 
and when the slide handle is closed the carrier 



The Modern Gun 49 

moves up parallel to the breech and the breech-bolt 
shoves the loaded cartridge into the chamber. 

Auto-Loading Guns. — The Auto-Loading Rifle: 
The auto-loading gun is not a new idea by any 
means, but it is only in recent years that it has 
been perfected, and as it is now made it is one of 



e^P/?£l EXTENS/M BREECH BOLT 
MRREL JACKET CfiRWDGEj FIRING Pl/^ 



aawNSPRm 




MM/IZIHE^PRING- 



CflRRIBR. 

TRicom eunsrocj^ 



Fig. 22, A — The Action of an Auto-Loading Rifle (at the 
Moment of Firing). 

the finest, cleanest, quickest and easiest-firing guns 
on the market. 

Look you now 2X A, B, C, D, Fig. 22, and you 
will see a moving picture, nearly, of the action of 
a box magazine, auto-loading rifle from the mo- 
ment of firing clear on through each operation until 
the new cartridge is slipped into the firing chamber. 

In the picture shown at A the hammer has just 
struck the firing-pin and exploded the cartridge. 
As soon as the cartridge has been fired the recoil, 
which is instantly developed by the exploding gases 



50 Shooting for Boys 

of the powder, drives the breech-bolt to the rear, 
bringing the cartridge with it as well as the barrel 
extension, which is locked to it as shown at B. 

This action compresses the heavy recoil and 
action spring in the butt stock, and which is shown 
fully compressed, the trigger being cocked in the 
cut B. Just as soon, though, as the recoil is spent 



B/iRRELJ/iCK£T BREECH BOLT 

EXTR/ICTOR^ \ FIRINO PIN 



fiCTION 




Fig. 22, B — The Action of an Auto-Loading Rifle (Recoil 
Driving Back Breech-Bolt and Barrel). 

the recoil spring draws the barrel forward, and this 
leaves a space for the empty shell to be ejected as 
shown at C 

When the extension barrel has gone forward to 
its natural position the spring carrier of the maga- 
zine pushes another cartridge into place, and at the 
same time the barrel presses on a catch which re- 
leases the breech-bolt and allows the recoil spring 
to drive the breech-bolt home, and so pushing the 
cartridge into the chamber. When the breech-bolt 



The Modern Gun 51 

has completely closed the opening the gun is ready 
to fire again. In this way the untoward action of 
the recoil is made to do useful work. 

The Auto-Loading Shotgun. — The action of the 
auto-loading shotgun is just about the same as that 
of the rifle except that a tubular magazine is used 

aflRREL eJECTOR BI^EECH BOLT 

EXTRflCTQ^^^EJECTEDj\ HJJU/iER 



\ 



fiCT/OH 




n/l^ZlNE 
SPIKING- 

CARRIER. 

Fig. 22, C — The Action of an Auto-Loading Rifle (at the 
Moment of Ejecting the Shell). 

for the shells instead of the box magazine used for 
cartridges. 

The shotgun is made to eject the cartridges 
through the side instead of through the top, but 
aside from these small matters of detail in the con- 
struction, the rifle and the shotgun work in the 
same manner. 

The Kind of a Gun to Buy. — ^When you buy a 
rifle or a shotgun for sporting purposes it is quite 
natural and perfectly proper for you to want the 
best. Whether you get it or not — well, that's an- 
other question. 



52 Shooting for Boys 

Never buy a rifle with less than a 20-inch bar- 
rel and one with a 24-inch barrel is better, for this 
is about the right length for a good, straight, hard- 
shooting gun. My son has used a Marlin lever- 
action repeating rifle ever since he was fourteen 
years old, and he has never had the slightest 
trouble with it. 

As to shotguns, I like a double-barreled shotgun 
with 30-inch barrels better than I do a repeating 

BJ^EeCH BOLT 

/fCT/ON 
SPRING- 




Fig. 22, D — The Action of an Auto -Loading Rifle (Spring 
Forcing in New Cartridge). 

gun, though I have used both the lever-action and 
pump-action gun ; but there is a charm about load- 
ing your gun by hand that sportsmen of the old 
school like myself never get over. Even our own 
Ben Franklin advocated the use of the crossbow 
as against the flintlock, and he wasn't exactly what 
you would call an old fogy either. 

But since you are a young American with the 
red blood of your forefathers, who fought with 



The Modern Gun 53 

muskets in the Revolution and the Civil War, 
coursing through your veins, you should have the 
most approved, up-to-date gun you can afford to 
buy, and so get either a lever- or pump-action, or 
better an auto-loading gun where all you have to 
do is to pull the trigger like an automatic pistol 
until the magazine is empty. 

As I said before, the pump-action gun is far 
better than the lever-action gun, for your finger 
never leaves the trigger. And when it comes to the 
auto-loading gun it is my opinion that it will finally 
take the place of all the others. It is as safe as, if 
not safer than, any other style of gun, and for trap 
and wing shooting you can't beat it, for it places 
at your command six shots which can be fired one 
after another without shifting your position one 
iota. The auto-loading gun also has the advantage 
of taking up nearly all of the recoil that in other 
guns reaches the marksman's shoulder. 

Military Guns. — In the barbarous days of old — 
of course we're highly civilized now — warfare was 
waged very differently from what it is today. 

The gun of yesterday was made as deadly as 
possible — that is, it gave the bullet great stoppage 
power, which means that once it hit a man, how- 
ever slight the wound it made, he was almost sure 
to die from the effects of it. 



54 Shooting for Boys 

To get this deadly effect dumdum, spHt and hol- 
low-nosed bullets that mushroomed when they hit 
and inflicted terrible flesh wounds were used. But 
in the last few years governments, like the human 
race in general, have acquired a little more sense, 
and so are a trifle more humane ; and although war 
is waged by every nation if only given half an 
excuse to fight, they have agreed to use bullets 
which if they do not kill when they strike are less 
apt to kill afterward. 

The three chief differences between a military 
rifle and a sporting rifle are ( i ) that the military 
rifle is of the bolt-action type; (2) the military 
rifle has a forearm that extends to nearly the 
length of the gun, and (3) the military rifle uses 
jacketed bullets. 

Nearly all modern military rifles use a cupro- 
steel jacketed bullet which makes a clean-cut 
wound and if this hits a man anywhere except in 
a vital organ the wound will heal quickly, or at least 
this is the theory of the theorists. 

The U. S. Springfield RiHe. — This is the gun 
that is made and used by the United States govern- 
ment, and it is called the Springfield in virtue of the 
fact that it is made by the government at Spring- 
field, Mass. 

It is a bolt-action clip magazine .30-caliber, 5- 



The Modern Gun 55 

shot rifle and weighs 8.6 pounds. A top view of it 
is shown at B in Fig. 23 and a cross-section side 
view is shown at A, while both pictures show the 
gun loaded and ready to fire. When the trigger is 



SAf cry LOCK SPtNDi 



riUlNG- PIN SLEEVE 8/}f?/?EL 







Fig. 23, A — The U. S. Springfield Service Rifle (Cross Sec- 
tional Side View). 



pulled the coiled mainspring is released and this 
drives the firing-pin up against the cartridge in the 
chamber and so explodes it. The handle of the 
bolt is then raised until it is in contact with the left 
side of the receiver and pulled directly to the rear 
as far as it will go. This causes the extractor 
to start the fired cartridge from the firing cham- 
ber and compresses the mainspring. It also forces 
the firing-pin to the rear. How the action is 
worked is shown at C, in Fig. 23. 

As this backward movement of the bolt-handle 
is completed the ejector flips the empty shell out 
to the right. The magazine spring then forces a 
cartridge up, and when the bolt-handle is pushed 



^6 Shooting for Boys 

forward and closed the cartridge is pushed into the 
firing chamber and the gun is ready to fire again. 
The gun can also be cocked by pulling the cocking- 
piece directly to the rear. 

The Springfield cartridge is made of an alloy of 
lead and tin and has a cupro-nickel jacket, that is, 
a jacket made of an alloy of copper and nickel. 

corofPSPjNDU caioFF ejecTORPiN slide cap sckiw 
^i££v£ LOCK- sp/?/N& \si£e/fL0Oi^ sxreACToe coimais.) sude t JUD£ c/tP- 




SCJP&V/ ffAfOS i 



Fig. 23, B — The U. S. Springfield Rifle (Cross Sectional 
Top View). 

This rifle has a muzzle velocity of 2,700 feet 
per second and is sighted to 2,850 yards, although 
its maximum range is 4,891 yards, which it covers 
in 38.058 seconds. When the gun is loaded by in- 
serting a cartridge at a time 23 shots can be fired 
in one minute, while the magazine permits 25 shots 
to be fired a minute. 

Foreign Military Rifles. — The bolt-action rifle 
has become the favorite military rifle of today, and 
it is either provided with a box, clip or tubular 
magazine which in some guns is contained inside 
the stock. 

The forearm of the military rifle is extra long, 



The Modern Gun 57 

extending to the muzzle in most models. The pur- 
pose is to protect the soldier's hands from the in- 
tense heat of the barrels that is produced by the 
smokeless cartridges which are in use by all coun- 



DECEIVE t? 3on 




ncEIVEl? BOLT 



Sfi^TY LOCK 



Fig. 23, C— The U. S. Springfield Rifle (How the Bolt Ac- 
tion Works). 

tries. The end of the barrel is fitted to receive a 
bayonet or short sword. 

The British government uses the hee Enfield 
rifle. It has a total length of 4 feet, weighs 9 
pounds, and shoots 10 cartridges without reload- 
ing. It shoots a lead bullet with a cupro-nickel 
jacket, and has a muzzle velocity of 2,060 feet per 
second. The cartridge is a .303-caliber, shoots 
smokeless powder, and the gun is sighted to 2,800 
yards. 

The French army rifle is the Lehel; it has a 
total length of 4 feet and 4 inches, and weighs 9 
pounds. The magazine holds eight .315-caliber 
cartridges which are loaded with copper bullets 
having a copper-zinc alloy jacket. It is sighted to 



58 Shooting for Boys 

2,620 yards and has a muzzle velocity of 2,310 feet 
per second. 

The German army rifle is the Mauser; it has a 
length of 4 feet and weighs 8 pounds. It shoots a 
.311-caliber soft lead, nickel-steel alloy jacketed 
bullet and the magazine holds 5 cartridges. Its 
muzzle velocity is 2,960 feet per second and its 
sighted range is 2,187 yards. 

Italy uses the Paravicino-Carcano rifle; Russia 
the three -line rifle and Japan the Arisakae. The 
military rifles of all of these countries use high- 
power cartridges charged with smokeless powder, 
and for this reason one gun is just about as good as 
another. 



CHAPTER IV 
THE GUN FOR THE BOY 

A LL through the foregoing chapters I have told 
A% you how to make things to shoot with from 
a sHng to a crossbow, and now I want to 
tell you about a boy who made his own gun. 

And you could make one too, and even easier 
than he did, for he lived a long time ago when 
tools were poor and scarce, but in these days of 
great machine shops it is cheaper and safer for you 
to buy a gun already made. 

The Boy Who Made a Gun. — He was an Ameri- 
can boy who lived at Ilion up in New York State 
just one hundred years ago ( 1817). His name was 
Eliphalet Remington, and while you may never 
have heard his first name before you will hear his 
last name wherever a gun is used, and this was the 
chap who wanted a gun so badly he vowed he*d 
make one. 

You, of course, will wonder why he didn't go 
to a sporting goods store and buy one, even as you 
and I, but the answer is that the only guns which 
could be bought at that time came from Europe, 

59 



6o Shooting for Boys 

and they were so all-fired costly he couldn't afford 
one, and so the only thing he could do was to make 
one, and this is the way he did it. 

His father was a blacksmith as well as a farmer, 
and young Eliphalet, when he wasn't growing 
things on the farm, was making things in the shop. 
When the idea of making a gun hit him, it hit him 
hard and he worked at the forge until he had ham- 
mered the barrel of a rifle out of the best steel he 
could make, for there was no ready-made steel in 
those days. 

When he had forged the barrel he walked to 
Utica, where he had it bored and rifled and a lock 
fitted to it ; then during the next couple of months 
he fashioned a stock of black walnut, a slow and 
tiresome job for a boy, but he stuck to it and after 
much hard work he finally finished it and fitted it 
to the lock and at last he owned a gun. (See 
Frontispiece.) 

And How He Killed a Bear Those were wild 

and woolly days around Ilion a century ago, and 
the hills about his home were fairly alive with 
game, both small and large. He loaded his rifle 
with a heavy charge of powder and a bullet, not 
in quest of a squirrel — no, siree — but to bag a 
deer. 

Now, a deer does not always come to him who 



I 



The Gun for the Boy 6i 

hunts for it, but in his case a big, brown bear who 
was out in the early morning seeking her breakfast 
sighted young Remington first and she made for 
him. The boy was a crack shot and good was his 
home-made gun; hence woe unto the bear. When 
he returned home the young gunmaker was drag- 
ging the bear after him, all of which was proof 
enough that he was not only a Yankee genius with 
tools, but some hunter as well. 

Well, when the neighbors found out what the 
youngster had done they wanted guns just like 
his, and it was not long before the boy and his 
father set up a real shop on a nearby creek so that 
they could have water power. This was the be- 
ginning of the Remington gun, and now after one 
hundred years it is still going strong. 

The Gun that is Made for You ^While this 

early American rifle was made by a boy still it 
was a man's gun in weight and size ; and it was not 
so very long ago that if a boy shot at all he had 
to use a man's gun. 

But of late years all this has been changed, and 
the makers of guns have woke up to the fact that 
if they made a gun especially for the boy of today 
and got him interested in shooting they stood a 
pretty good chance of selling him guns and ammu- 
nition tomorrow when he grew up. 



62 Shooting for Boys 

And the gun manufacturers guessed about right, 
and so nearly all of them make a boy's rifle now 
that is at once light in weight, shoots cheap ammu- 
nition, and is as powerful as it needs to be while 
its first cost is indeed very small. For these rea- 
sons the rifle known as a .22-caliber — and there 
is quite a family of them — has become very popular 
with boys the world over. 

For target-shooting you can't beat a .22 rifle, as 
there is no kick to speak of and this does away 
with the natural tendency which most beginners 
have of flinching when the gun is fired. But the 
.22-caliber gun is more than a mere target gun, 
for it is just as effective to shoot small game with, 
such as squirrels, rabbits, etc., when it is in the 
hands of a good shot as a rifle of larger caHber 
and which uses more expensive ammunition. 

Besides these good features the .22-caliber is a 
safety gun in the sense that its range and penetra- 
tion is nowhere nearly as great as in rifles of larger 
caliber with one exception, but this is another story 
which I shall tell you about later. Anyhow, the 
.22-caliber rifle is the gun that is made for you, so 
buy one and be glad. 

The Family of Boys' Guns.^ — When you get 
ready to buy a gun you will very likely be sur- 
prised to find that there are a dozen different 



1 



The Gun for the Boy 63 

makes as well as several kinds on the market, and 
you will, of course, want to know which one is the 
best. 

Now, guns are very like clothes and automobiles 
and other things in that if you buy a well-known 
make with a reputation behind it you will get full 
value for your money. Each one of the guns which 
I shall describe is a good gun — or I should not 
tell you about it — and all you have to do is to pick 
the one that suits your fancy and the contents of 
your pocketbook and you will have the right gun. 

The Remington Boys' Rifles. — The Remington 
people make two styles of rifles which are espe- 
cially adapted for boys just about your size and 
age. 

The Single-shot Rifle. — The first is known as 
their No. 6 single-shot take-down rifle and of 
course it is a .22-caliber gun. (See A, Fig. 24.) 

If you are a beginner it is a good gun for you 
to have because until you have learned how to 
handle and care for a gun a higher priced one is 
really an extravagance. The No. 6 has a 20-inch 
round barrel which I dare say is made of far bet- 
ter steel and more accurately bored and rifled than 
the original Remington — but alas and alack-a-day 1 
there are no bears hereabouts, and that's where 
Eliphalet had the best of it. 



64 



Shooting for Boys 



Waking up again, the barrel of the No. 6 is of 
the best steel, the frame is forged and case-hard- 
ened, and the stock and fore-end are of turned wal- 
nut. The working parts of the lock are of forged 




/Va 6-5/NGLE SHOT, T^KE DOWN R/FLE 




T/IRGET MODEL 
\ - m. 12- PUMP /JCT/ON /i/)MMERLE55 
REPBmiNG T/=IKE DOWN RIFLE 




O m./6-5TMD/?RD /fUTOM/lT/C REPE/JTER 

Fig. 24 — The Remington Family of .22- Caliber Rifles. 

steel and the butt of the rifle is fitted with a steel 
butt-plate. 

This rifle is provided with a leaf rear sight and a 
bead front sight and in addition a long peep sight 
is attached to the tang of the rifle, the use of which 
is described in the chapter on How to Be a Crack 
Shot. It is chambered to take the following am- 



The Gun for the Boy 65 

munition : BB and CB caps, .22-short and .22-long 
cartridges, which are described in the chapter on 
Powder and Shot and Shell. 

The rifle can be taken apart, hence it is called 
a take-down rifle, by means of a thumbscrew, and 
this is a great convenience in cleaning as well as in 
carrying it about when not in use. It only weighs 
4 pounds and it costs but $4.55. 

The Repeating Pump-Action Rifle. — Another 
kind of Remington rifle is designed for target- 
shooting. It is a repeating, hammerless, pump- 
action gun with a 24-inch octagon — ^that is, eight- 
sided — steel barrel having a 16-inch twist, which 
means the spiral formed by the grooves. (See 
Appendix D.) 

The stock, which is made of walnut, is fitted with 
a pistol-grip, and this will help you to shoot 
straight. The magazine is of the tube type, is 
placed under the barrel, and holds fifteen short, 
twelve long or eleven long rifle .22-caliber car- 
tridges. It weighs about 55^ pounds and costs 
$18.10. It is shown at B, Fig. 24. 

The Auto-Loading Rifle. — Should you prefer to 
have an auto-loading .22-caliber rifle — and of 
course you will prefer it if you have the money 
to buy it with — you can get a fine gun of this 
kind of Remington make, as shown at C, Fig. 24, 



66 Shooting for Boys 

with a 22-inch round steel barrel which weighs 
only sH pounds at a cost of $23.70. 

The Winchester Boys* Rifles. — The Winchester 
Repeating Arms Company makes several different 
models of .22-caliber rifles, and all of them have 
been very popular. 

The Single-shot RiHe. — The Winchester Model 
1902 single-shot take-down rifle, shown at A, Fig. 
25, will shoot .22-short, .22-long or .22-long rifle 
cartridges. The action of this rifle is of the holt 
type; it is very simple and has very few parts. The 
barrel is 18 inches long, and it has a combination 
trigger-guard and pistol-grip with polished stock 
and rubber butt-plate. It only weighs 3 pounds and 
costs $5.50. 

This company also makes a thumb-trigger single- 
shot rifle in which the trigger is placed on the upper 
side of the grip at the rear of the bolt, and it is 
worked by simply pressing it down with the thumb. 
Its cost is only $4.50. The Winchester Model 
1904 take-down single-shot rifle has a 21 -inch 
heavy barrel and costs $7.25. 

The Repeating Pump-Action Rifle. — The .22- 
caliber Winchester pump-action repeater (see B, 
Fig. 25) has been the favorite shooting gallery 
gun for years. Its action is shown at A and B in 
Fig. 20. It has a 24-inch octagon barrel and a 



The Gun for the Boy 67 

tubular magazine which shoots fifteen .22-short, 
twelve long, or eleven long rifle cartridges. It 
weighs 5 pounds and costs only $17.50. 

The Automatic RiHe. — This is a lo-shot self- 
loading hammerless take-down rifle, and you will 
get a mighty fine gun if you can afford to pay as 
much as $27.00. The magazine in this rifle is in 
the stock, and it is filled through an opening in the 




fl- SihlGLE SHOT SPORTING RIFL£ 



=cm[iiiiii III! 




B'MODEL 1900 PUMP ACTION 

PEPE/ITING- RIFLE 




C- MODEL 1903 MTOMATIC REPEATER 

Fig. 25 — The Winchester Family of .22 -Caliber Rifles. 

Stock after the magazine tube is pulled back. It 
weighs 554 pounds and is shown at C in Fig. 25. 
The Marlin Boys' Rifles— The Marlin Arms 
Corporation does not make any single-shot rifles, 
but I can testify to the excellence of their repeaters. 



68 



Shooting for Boys 



The Repeating Pump-Action Rifle. — This rifle 
is very Hke the Winchester just described, except 
that it has a soHd top side ejector and a closed-in 
frame. It handles the .22-short, .22-long, and 
long rifle cartridges. Model 2p weighs 4j4 pounds 
and costs $12.00, while Model 20 weighs 4^4 




f\- I&9ZI10DEL REPtmiNO LEVER fiCTtOhf 

Kit't-C. 




^- MODEL N0.Z9 PUMP/iCT/ON 
R£P£/9VN& RIFLE 

Fig. 26 — The Marlin Family of .22-Caliber Rifles. 

pounds and costs $14.00. Model 29 is shown at 
B in Fig. 26. 

The Repeating Lever-Action Rifle. — This com- 
pany also makes a lever-action repeating .22-caliber 
rifle known as the 1892 Model. It weighs 59^ 
pounds and costs about $15.00. As I have used a 
Marlin Model 1894 .44-40-caliber carbine with 
lever action for several years I am partial to this 
kind of a gun. It is pictured at A in Fig. 26. 

The Savage Boys' Rifles — From the title you 
may think I mean that these guns are for savage 



The Gun for the Boy 69 

boys but nay, nay — they are only for good little 
boys like you and me, and, let me whisper this, the 
Savage Arms Company is turning out some of the 
finest guns that have ever been made for boys. 

The Single-shot Rifle. — This company makes a 
single-shot rifle, and this is known as Model 1^05 
target rifle. It has a 22-inch round barrel, weighs 
4 pounds and 12 ounces, and costs $6.50. It has 
a bolt action as described in the last chapter under 
the caption of Military Rifles. A, Fig. 27, is an 
illustration of it. 

The Repeating Pump-Action Rifle. — The Sav- 
age folks also make two styles of .22-caliber 
pump-action repeaters. The first style (see B, 
Fig. 27) is made with a hox magazine, the con- 
struction of which was described in Chapter III. 
It shoots seven shots, weighs 5j^ pounds, and 
costs $14.00. 

The tube magazine repeater holds twenty .22- 
caliber short, seventeen long, or fifteen long rifle 
cartridges. This gun weighs 5^ pounds and costs 
but $16.00. 

The Automatic Rifle. — A featherweight, self- 
loading .22-caliber rifle is also made by this com- 
pany. It weighs 4^ pounds and costs $12.50. It 
is shown at C, Fig. 27. 

The Stevens Boys' Rifles — The Stevens Arms 



70 



Shooting for Boys 



Company makes a good line of moderate-priced 
.22-caliber rifles. 

The Single-shot Rifle. — Their single-shot rifles 
are very good, especially models No. 12, called the 
Marksman, and No. 26, called the Crack Shot, are 
good guns for target-shooting. The former 



f\~ MOOBL 1905 
51NCLE SHOZ BOLT /iCTJONT/iRGET RIFLE 




B- MODEL /903 
PU/iPJ9CT/0N. BOX M/iG/iZJNE H/iMMERLESS 
REPE/1TER. 




C-nOOEL I9IZ 
/JUTOMMIC BOX M/iGfiZJNE RIFLE 

Fig. 27 — The Savage Family of .22-Caliber Rifles. 



weighs 4 pounds and costs $6.50, while the latter 
weighs 2% pounds and costs $4.75. It is pictured 
at A, Fig. 28. 

The Pump- Action Repeater. — The Stevens vis- 
ible loading pump-action rifle, as shown at B, Fig. 
2*^, is something new in repeaters. The magazine 
tube and the breech-block are made in one piece 
and the cartridge is always in sight while it is being 



The Gun for the Boy 71 

fed into the chamber. The gun weighs 5 pounds 
and costs about $12.00/ 

Shotguns for Boys. — Trap-shooting — that is, 
shooting clay birds thrown into the air by means of 
a trap — is the finest sport of the day, and if you 




f\'tLQ,Z^CB/aCK^HQT5INGL£3H0r RIFLE 




2>-VfSlBLEL0/IDIN6REPE/JTINGR/FL 
Fig. 28 — The Stevens Family of .22-Caliber Rifles. 

are a real live boy you will certainly want to get 
in on it. 

Until a few years ago the cost of a good reliable 
shotgun, its great weight, and the cost of the am- 
munition prevented a boy from indulging in this 
up-to-date sport, but now with a very moderate 
outlay you can get a good, cheap and light gun. 

Now, a shotgun is different from a rifle in that 
it shoots a shell which contains a number of shot 
and this gives you a better chance of hitting your 
target than with a rifle. The barrel of a shotgun 

* The prices given in this chapter are correct at this writ- 
ing but are subject to change. 



72 Shooting for Boys 

has a much larger bore than that of a rifle (see 
Appendix G) and it is also longer. The charge of 
powder in the cartridge is also larger and more 
powerful than that used in a rifle cartridge, and 
yet to make it light enough to use the barrel must 
be made of thinner steel than that of a rifle. For 
this reason you should be sure to buy an Ai high- 




Fig. 29— The Ithaca Double-Barreled 20-Gauge Shotgun. 

grade shotgun, for there is always danger in using 
a poor, cheap make. 

There are so many makes of good guns on the 
market that it would be impossible for me to de- 
scribe all of them here, but I will say this, that 
$25.00 is the least that you can buy a good double- 
barreled shotgun for of aily make. 

Shotguns are made in different bores, or gauges, 
and these are 10, 12, 16,20 and 28; the lO-gauge 
gun is the largest and most powerful and the 28- 
gauge gun the smallest. The 12-gauge gun is the 
size most generally used by sportsm^n^ but it is 



The Gun for the Boy 73 

too heavy and the recoil is too great for a boy to 
do accurate shooting with it. Instead, my boy 
prefers a 20-gauge Ithaca double-barreled gun, as 
shown in Fig. 29, as it is safe, light and inexpen- 
sive, and it will just fit you too. 

Although it shoots only two-thirds as many shot 
as the i2-gauge gun and weighs much less, the 
pattern is just as large and the penetration is just 
about the same. Owing to its light weight — 5^ 
pounds — and the light weight of the ammunition 
used in it you can get into action with this gun 
one-fifth of a second quicker than with a 12-gauge 
gun, and this is a great advantage, as some birds 
fly 20 feet in this length of time. 

So you see that while the number of shot in the 
shell is not so great as in the shell of the 12-gauge 
gun, still you can hit your flying bird 20 feet 
nearer, and this more than makes it the equal in 
power of the larger gun. Taken all around, the 
Ithaca is an ideal gun for a boy, and I have found 
it equally good for myself. 



CHAPTER V 
GUN SAFETY FIRST 

IN the wild old days when Davy Crockett, 
Colonel Jim Bowie — he of bowie knife 
fame — Daniel Boone and other pioneers just 
as brave were exploring and settling the wilderness 
that lay to the west of the Alleghany Mountains 
there was one gun at least in every family and 
sometimes every member, including the boys and 
the girls, had one of his or her very own. 

When Every Boy Could Shoot. — The long-bar- 
reled rifle of the pioneer was often his sole means 
of obtaining meat, and what was of even greater 
importance it was his weapon of defense against 
not only wild animals but marauding Indians and 
the equally bloodthirsty white renegades. 

To enable him to live up to the first law of na- 
ture^ which is self-preservation, every boy was 
trained to shoot and to shoot straight just as soon 
as he was able to lift the heavy rifle and aim it. 
Then when his father was called away from 
home by his work the boy became the protector of 
and provider for the family, and his ability to do 

74 



Gun Safety First 75 

both of these things depended on his skill as a 
sharpshooter, and if you are a bred-in-the-bone 
American boy you have in the very nature of things 
inherited the quick draw, the sharp sight and the 
steady nerve of your hardy forefathers — and so 
you ought to make a crack shot. 

Gun Accidents in the Early Days. — In those 
early days, and for a long time after, there were 
lots of accidents, and these were caused not so 
much by carelessness in the use of a gun, for every 
boy was taught the ethics of shooting — which 
means the right way to handle a gun with regard 
to the safety of himself and others — but because 
the art of making guns was new, and every now 
and then one exploded and did other things that a 
good gun should not do. 

Still no one ever thought of such a thing as keep- 
ing a boy from learning to shoot, for it was the 
lesser of two evils — that is, the boy's folks would 
rather take a chance on a good gun going bad than 
on a bad Indian getting good; and hence he very 
quickly learned how to take aim and fire at any 
and every thing which he could skin and eat or 
which, turn about, might eat him skin and all. 

How Guns are Now Made Safe — After a hun- 
dred years of experimenting the guns of today 
have been perfected to such an extent that those 



76 



Shooting for Boys 



turned out by any reputable maker are not liable 
to explode nor will they go off prematurely if you 
do your part. 

The Steel the Barrels are Made Of. — Where 
barrels in the long ago were made of two or more 








5/IND , 
•BANK V^,,> 



5/}Nl> 



<^y 1 

Fig. 30 — How Gun Barrels Are Proved. 

pieces of steel welded together they are now made 
of a single solid piece of Krupp, Damascus, stub 
twist, vanadium or other high-grade steel. 

How the Guns are Proved. — To prove a gun 
means to test it, and one of the ways that makers 



Gun Safety First 77 

do this is to load the barrel with a charge heavy 
enough to break any but the very best; it is then 
sent to the firing-room, where it is laid in a groove 
on a rack with its muzzle pointed toward a sand- 
bank, as shown in Fig. 30. 

Then the charge is exploded, and if the barrel is 
without a flaw it will come out unscathed. It is 
then taken into another room, washed out and care- 
fully inspected, and if it is O. K., it is next sub- 
jected to a water pressure of 600 pounds to the 
square inch, and if there is the slightest defect in 
the barrel it will burst. These tests are called the 
provisional proof. 

After these tests are made each barrel is drilled 
to the required caliber and rifled, or it is bored 
to the proper gauge, depending on whether it is a 
rifle or a shotgun, and it is then fixed to the breech- 
action. It is ready now for the final test, which is 
called the definative proof, that is, the gun is loaded 
and fired again. 

In this proof if the action shows any weakness it 
either gapes at the breech or else it is blown to 
pieces. After these tests when the gun reaches you 
you may be sure that it is as nearly 100 per cent 
proof against exploding as it is possible to make it. 
In the old-time guns the different parts of the 
receiver and other parts were brazed together while 



78 Shooting for Boys 

now they are made of the finest quaHty of drop- 
forged tool steel. 

Other Safety Improvements — Besides the great 
improvements in the various parts of the gun of 
today due to the wonderful advances in making 
high-grade steel the gun manufacturer has picked 
the brains of the greatest inventors for other ideas 
of safety for the last half -century, and the big 
manufacturers have vied with each other in recent 
years to see who could make the safest gun, with 
the net result that every one now turned out is as 
safe as it can be. 

The Hammer at Half-cock. — Next to using the 
finest steel for the barrel and the receiver, nearly 
all the other schemes for safety have to do with 
preventing the gun from accidentally going off 
before you are ready to pull the trigger. 

The greatest safety device ever put on a gun 
dates way back to the time of the flintlocks and 
this is the hammer at half-cock — a position mid- 
way between the hammer when it rests on the car- 
tridge or shell and when it is at full-cock, that is, 
pulled clear back. 

When the hammer is at half-cock the sear, which 
is the piece that holds the hammer at half-cock, 
holds the hammer in place so that it cannot by any 
hook, slip or crook be pulled down either acci- 



Gun Safety First 



79 



dentally or on purpose, and the only way to shoot 
the gun is to draw the hammer back to full-cock. 
Fig. 31 shows the hammer at half-cock. 

Safety in Repeating Rifles. — In repeating rifles 
safety is obtained by so constructing them that the 
hammer cannot be pulled down by any possible 

H/IMMER 



-5E/iR 5PRIN& 
KNOCK OFF 




H/iMMER 
SPRING 



TRIGGER 



KNOCK OFF 
SPRING 

Fig. 31 — The Hammer at Half-Cock. 

chance while the action is open, and different mak- 
ers use various means for getting this result. 

In the Marlin repeating rifle the firing-pin is cut 
in two and when the action is open and you are 
loading the gun the front end of the rear piece of 
the firing-pin drops into a slot in the breech-bolt 
and when it is in this position the gun cannot pos- 
sibly be discharged. 



8o Shooting for Boys 

The Winchester and Remington repeating rifles 
have what is known as a safety-catch, and when 
the action is open and you are loading the gun the 
catch prevents the trigger from being pulled and 
of course the hammer cannot strike the firing-pin. 

Very nearly all the .22 hammerless guns that are 
now made are provided with a safety slide-button 
which is set directly in front of the trigger and 
under the gunner's thumb. This safety button 
locks the trigger, and you cannot pull the latter 
until you release it again. This provides a safety 
device which is just as efficient as the half-cock 
of the visible hammer guns. 

The rnakers of guns have weeded out every 
chance for an accident to happen in so far as the 
construction of the gun is concerned, and if then 
an accident occurs it is dollars to doughnuts that 
it was caused by your carelessness and not by any 
fault of theirs. 

Yes, while nearly every accident can be traced 
directly to the carelessness or the ignorance — which 
is just as bad — of the gunner, yet the fault may 
not alone be his, for he may never have been told 
or shown the right way to handle a gun. 

But since " ignorance is no excuse in the eyes 
of the law " it is strictly up to you to learn how to 
handle a gun in a safe and sane way, and you will 



Gun Safety First 8i 

not only live to a ripe old age but you will let 
others live their allotted threescore and ten, that 
is, if the doctors don't decide otherwise. 

Rules for Safety in Handling Guns. — Rule No. 
I. — The very first and most important rule for you 
to know and to live up to is to never under any cir- 
cumstances point a gun, whether it is loaded or not, 
at any one. Many a person has been killed by an 
idiot who pointed a gun at him, playfully pulled 
the trigger and then tried to justify his terrible 
mistake by saying he didn't know it was loaded. 

Rule II. — Never point a gun at anything which 
you do not intend to shoot at. 

Rule III. — Never load your gun while any one is 
in front of you, and it naturally follows that you 
must never stand in front of any one who is load- 
ing a gun. 

Rule IV. — Always keep your face away from 
the muzzle of a gun, for it has no business there. 
There is only one end of a gun barrel that it is 
safe to look through, and that is the breech end. 

Rule V. — A bad habit that some beginners get 
into is to cock and pull the trigger for fun. This 
is bad for two reasons, and these are : ( i ) because 
the gun might he loaded and (2) because if the 
gun is unloaded the whole mechanism of the action 
is needlessly worn and may be strained. If for 



82 Shooting for Boys 

any reason you should want to try the action of a 
gun put an empty cartridge in the firing chamber 
and then try it out. 

Rules for Safety in Loading a Gun After let- 
ting these rules sink through the porous clay of 
your cranium it is time for you to learn how to 
load your gun safely. 

Rule VL — In loading your gun hold it so that 
the muzzle of it points toward the ground and 
about a yard away from your feet. 

Rule VI L — If you are loading a single-shot gun 
set the trigger at half-cock, open the breech, and 
then slip in a cartridge. Close the breech and 
let the gun stay at half-cock until the moment be- 
fore you are ready to aim. By following this rule 
the cartridge simply can't go off accidentally. 

Rule VIII. — The moment you have pulled the 
trigger and the hammer has hit the firing-pin and 
exploded the cartridge pull the hammer back to 
half-cock. 

The only time when a gun should be at full-cock 
is at the instant of firing; at all other times the 
hammer should be at half-cock, or safety, as it is 
called. 

Rule IX. — (a) All repeating guns are of course 
at full-cock when you have worked the action for 
the purpose of reloading them. Unless you are 



Gun Safety First 



83 




-iflire 



Fig. 32, A~How to Carry a Loaded Gun (Sportsman's 
Style). 



84 Shooting for Boys 

shooting one shot rapidly after another do not 
leave it at full-cock, (b) To set a repeater at half- 
cock grasp the hammer firmly with the thumb and 
gently pull the trigger with your index, or trigger 
finger; hold the hammer tight and let it down 
from full-cock to half-cock. This operation should 
be practiced with an empty gun until you have the 
knack of it down fine. 

Rules for Safety in Shooting a Gun. — Even the 
best ammunition has its faults and small-caliber 
cartridges are far more apt to miss fire than those 
of larger calibers. 

Rule X. — (a) If when you pull the trigger the 
cartridge does not explode, the chances are that 
it won't go off even if the trigger is pulled the sec- 
ond time, (b) Never take the cartridge out of 
the gun at once if it has failed, as it may be hanging 
fire and if you do it may explode in your hands a 
couple of seconds later. 

Rule XL — (a) Bear in mind that the extreme 
range of a .22-caliber cartridge is about 1,300 
yards and when you are shooting at a mark always 
remember that if you miss it the bullet will travel 
^ of a mile, and you never can tell who or what 
is between your mark and the place where the bul- 
let lights. 

(&) The safest way to shoot is to either aim so 



Gun Safety First 



85 




Fig. 32, B — How to Carry a Loaded Gun (Military Style). 



86 Shooting for Boys 

that the bullet will hit the ground a few feet back of 
the target or else give it enough rise so that it will 
spend its power in the air. Of course if there is 
a deadstop back of the mark you are shooting at 
you need not heed this last rule. 

How to Carry a Loaded Gun Safely When you 

are carrying a loaded gun, as for instance when 
roving — that is, going across country and shooting 
at various marks as you come to them — or when 
hunting, note the following safety rules. 

Rule XII. — The safest way to carry a gun is to 
hold it in your hand by the balance, or middle of 
the rifle, that is at the action allowing the comb 
of the stock — that is, upper edge of it — to rest 
against your armpit and with the barrel projecting 
out and down in front of you, the whole gun being 
at such an angle that should it go off accidentally 
the bullet would hit the ground 3 or 4 feet in front 
of you, as shown in Fig. 32. 

The military style of carrying a gun is to rest it 
on your right shoulder, or at shoulder arms as it 
is called, and this way is shown in Fig. 33. The 
butt is grasped in the right hand and the gun is 
held at an angle of about ^5 degrees, so that the 
barrel points well up toward the sky, and this is 
also a safe way. 

Rule XIII . — Never carry your gun loaded unless 



Gun Safety First 87 

you are hunting, and then always carry it at half- 
cock. If your gun is at full-cock and you should 
slip up or fall down or stub your toe and some- 
thing should strike the hammer the gun might be 
discharged and you or your shooting partner or 
some one else would be very likely to get hurt. 

Rule for Owning a Gun. — Rule XIV : Before 
you ever use a gun study these rules until you know 
them upside down and can say them backward and 
then heed them to the letter. If you do you will 
always be on the safe side, and if you don't you 
haven't got the right kind of sporting blood in you 
and you should never be permitted to own a gun, 
much less allowed to shoot one. 



CHAPTER VI 
POWDER AND SHOT AND SHELL 

IF you will jog your memory a little and hark 
back to the Invention of the Gun you will be 
able to conjure up a picture of the hunter who 
carried his powderhorn, or flask, his bullet pouch, 
paper for the wads and a ramrod, besides his gun, 
whenever he went a-shooting. 

Bother was the front name of the old-fashioned 
muzzle-loading gun, and to make more trouble, if 
such a thing was possible, after carrying along all 
these trappings the shooter wasted a lot of his 
precious ammunition every time he loaded up ; be- 
sides, no matter if a bear or an Indian was right 
on his heels there was no such word as hurry in 
his old dictionary of getting ready to blaze away 
the second time. 

When the Cartridge Came Into Use ^With the 

coming of the metallic cartridge — that is, a metal 
shell in which the fulminate is placed in the closed 
end, or head, with the powder on top of it and 
the bullet set in the open end — all the old-time 
bother and trouble of the ramrodders ended, 

88 



Powder and Shot and Shell 89 

though they did not end at once because the new 
ammunition and the guns to use it in were very 
costly. 

The metallic cartridge first saw the light of day 
in 1 83 1 and the credit of its invention is due to the 
French. After its introduction over there it was 
several years before it was brought to the United 
States, and as late as Civil War days the boys in 
blue and gray used a scheme just a notch ahead of 
the ancient powderflask and bullet pouch. It con- 
sisted of a paper, or linen cartridge, which carried 
the exact charge in it and one end of which the sol- 
dier was supposed to tear off with his fingers, but 
which he found it easier to bite off with his teeth 
just before loading his musket. 

Shortly after the war was over the first metallic 
cartridges came into use in this country, but even 
then it was a long time before they became popular 
because, as I have pointed out above, both the car- 
tridges and the breech-loaders for shooting them 
were so expensive. Still rich sportsmen had them 
and a demand was thus created which was a step in 
the direction of making them cheaper. 

The Coming of the Minie Bullet. — About the 
year 1845 ^ French inventor named Minie made 
another improvement, and this time it had to do 
with so small a thing as the shape of the bullet, but 



90 Shooting for Boys 

which is a mighty factor in its flight, as we shall see 
a little further on. 

A hundred years before the Minie bullet was 
invented it had been found that rifling the barrel 
would give the bullet a rotary motion, that is it 
makes it spin round on its long axis and literally 
bore its way through the air, and this action caused 
it to shoot farther, straighter and with greater 
power than when it was shot from a smooth-bore 
gun. 

Up to Minie's time the bullets had always been 
made round, but this inventor produced a bullet of 
the shape as it is used today — that is, the front end 
is conical, the body is cylindrical and the rear end 
is flat. 

Now, this new style of bullet was a great im- 
provement on the old round bullet, for it offered 
much less resistance to the air and besides it was 
considerably heavier than a round bullet of the 
same caliber. When this bullet was shot from a 
rifled barrel it showed not only a higher velocity, 
that is, the number of feet it travels in a second, 
or speed, but that it had a carrying power of nearly 
twice the distance. 

The Pin-fire Cartridge. — One of the first kinds 
of metallic cartridges made was known as the pin- 
fire cartridge, and since it was formed of a metal 



Powder and Shot and Shell 91 

shell it was called a metallic cartridge^ a name that 
is used to this day. 

In the closed end of this cartridge a firing-pin 
was fixed and the fulminating powder covered this 
pin on the inside of the shell; then the powder 
was put in and on top of this the bullet was set and 
held in place by the pressure of the open rim end of 
the cartridge. When the hammer of the gun struck 
the pin of the cartridge it exploded the latter and 
sent the bullet whizzing on its way. 

Rim and Center-fire Cartridges. — While the pin- 
fire cartridge was a wonderful improvement in 
gunnery and a far cry in advance of anything else 
that shooters had ever used before, still there was 
lots of room for the inventor to show his ability 
and to reap the reward — if some one else did not 
reap it for him — for the new-fangled pin-fire car- 
tridge nearly cost its weight in gold to manufacture 
and what was wanted was a cartridge and a 
breech-loading gun which were cheap enough so 
that every shooter could afford to have and use 
them. 

And soon the long-haired inventor came forth 
from his attic workshop and he brought with him 
a gun — a gun that had the firing-pin in the breech- 
block and a cartridge with a solid back and he 
was crowned with laurel and honors were heaped 



92 Shooting for Boys 

upon him, and let us hope he also made a lot of 
money out of his clever invention. 

Now, there are two kinds of cartridges, and 
these are known as (i) rim- fire cartridges and (2) 
center-fire cartridges. 

The Rim-fire Cartridge. — In the rim-fire car- 
tridge the primer is set in the rim of the cartridge 
as shown at A in Fig. 33, and the firing-pin of the 

FIRING PIN 

fl- /^ KIM FIRE b'fiCENTERFIRE 

CARTRIDGE CmTR-IDOE 

Fig. 33 — Rim and Center Fire Cartridges. 

gun strikes the rim hard enough to put a dent in 
it and this explodes the fulminate. 

Nearly all .22-caliber rifles are made to use rim- 
fire cartridges, as this is the cheapest ammunition 
that can be bought. There are .22-caliber rifles 
that use center-fire cartridges, but a rifle that shoots 
a rim-fire cartridge will serve your purpose just as 
well. 

The Center-fire Cartridge. — A center-fire car- 
tridge (see B, Fig. 33) is made in just about the 
same fashion as a rim-fire cartridge, except that 



Powder and Shot and Shell 93 

the primer is set in the center of the head of the 
shell and it is there that the firing-pin of the rifle 
strikes. 

Nearly all makes of American rifles now on the 
market except the .22-calibers shoot center-fire car- 
tridges as these are more certain in their action. 

Shotgun Shells. — Cartridges may be further 
divided into ( i ) those that are shot in a rifle and 
(2) those that are shot in a shotgun, and this 
latter kind are called shells, whether they are loaded 
or unloaded. 

While a cartridge has a primer and is loaded 
with powder and a bullet as we have seen above, the 
shell for a shotgun has a primer that is fixed in 
what is called a battery-cup; next a charge of 
powder is put in the shell and two or three wads 
of felt are forced down on top of the powder. 

The shot is then poured in on top of the wads, 
a cardboard wad is put on top of the shot and the 
shell is crimped, that is turned down to hold the 
last wad in place. All shells for shotguns are of 
the center-fire kind. A shotgun shell cut in two 
is shown in Fig. 34. 

Now, there are two kinds of shells used, namely 
(a) those in which the shell proper, or containing 
case, is made entirely of brass, and (b) those in 
which th^ head of the shell is made of bras3 ^nd 



94 



Shooting for Boys 



the case is made of paper. The paper shells are 
just about as good if they are handled carefully 
and are very much cheaper. 

About Reloading Shells. — Both kinds of shells 
can be reloaded, but it is safer and better in every 



PRIMEfl 

UPSET 
BfiTTER.rCUF\ 

BR/iSS CUP 
FELTWmoWi 
SHOT 




WDER 



^-P/fPEf^ 



ID CJ 

Fig- 34— Cross-Section View of a Shotgun Shell. 

way for you to buy your ammunition ready-made 
instead of preparing it yourself unless you are an 
experienced shooter, and then you may have ideas 
of your own on the subject. 

Powder for Cartridges and Shells. — There are 
three different kinds of powder used for loading 
rifle and shotgun shells, and these range from a 
fine grain to a coarse grain and from black to 
smokeless. 

Ordinary Black Powder, — For some cartridges 



Powder and Shot and Shell 95 

black powder of various sizes is used. The finest 
grain powders are made for pistols, revolvers and 
rifles having very small caHbers, while the coarser 
grain powders are used for large-caliber rifles. 

Semi-smokeless Powder. — This is a dead, bluish- 
black powder and is better than ordinary black 
powder in that it gives a greater degree of accuracy, 
produces less fouling, has a higher velocity, and 
generates less heat. For these reasons it is used al- 
most altogether for rifle cartridges. 

The different size grains of semi-smokeless 
powders are lettered as follows : FFFFG for the 
finest grains, and this is the kind that is used in .22- 
caliber rifles; the FFG size is used for .32-caliber 
rifles, and the FG and the CG sizes are used for the 
larger calibers. The smaller grain powders should 
never be used for large-caliber rifles because bulk 
for bulk they are much more powerful than black 
powder, and to insure safety the right size of pow- 
der must be used in a cartridge of a given caliber. 

Smokeless, or Nitro Powder This is the 

powder that nearly all sportsmen prefer. There 
are two kinds of smokeless powder made, and these 
are known as (i) bulk-for-bulk and (2) dense 
powder. (See Appendix II.) 

Bulk-for-bulk, or simply bulk for short, means a 
powder whose charge, or explosive power corre- 



96 Shooting for Boys 

spends very nearly when an equal bulk is used as 
black powder although the smokeless powder 
weighs much less, while dense powder is one which 
equals the strength of a black powder charge but 
whose bulk is much less. 

The following trade names are given to bulk 
powders for use in shotgun shells, and when you 
buy shells loaded with them you will know to a 
certainty that they can be depended on; these 
powders are (a)Du Pont; (b) Schultze; (c) E. C. 
Hazard and (d) Empire. Dense powders of re- 
liable make are the Infallible and Ballistite. 

Ammunition for .22-Caliber Rifles And now a 

few words about ammunition for the family of 
.22-caliber rifles which we talked about in the chap- 
ter before this one. There are many makers of 
ammunition, and of course all of them make .22- 
caliber cartridges, but those that I know from ex- 
perience to be good ones are the Peters, Remington, 
Winchester and U. S. Cartridge Company. 

Kinds of .22-Caliber Cartridges. — Of course all 
.22 cartridges have the same diameter, but five 
different lengths are made. These various sizes are 
(a) the 55, (&) CB, (c) short, (d) long and (e) 
long rifle cartridges, all of which are shown full 
size in Fig. 35. 

All of these cartridges are charged with either 



Powder and Shot and Shell 



97 



black, semi-smokeless or smokeless powders as you 
want them. The short, long and long rifle car- 
tridges are also made with (a) solid bullets or 
with (b) hollow bullets. 

The BB caps, as these little cartridges are called, 
are used in nearly all of the shooting galleries 
where the range is only 50 feet ; they should never 
be used in a gun that has a rifled barrel. The short 



QDDUD 



B 



dUD OZIDQCZllD 



CD E 

Fig- 35 — Kinds of .22-Caliber Cartridges. 



and long cartridges are plenty good enough for 
target-shooting at close range, but for all-round 
shooting you will find the .22-long rifle cartridge 
loaded with semi-smokeless powder and a solid bul- 
let as good as the best. 

The .22-caliber long rifle cartridge carries a bul- 
let that weighs 40 grains and it has a muzzle 
velocity — that is, a speed as it leaves the barrel — 
of 970 feet per second, an accurate range at from 



98 



Shooting for Boys 



100 to 200 yards, and a penetration of five %-inch 
pine boards. The different kinds of .22-caHber 
bullets are shown in Fig. 36. 

Shot Cartridges for Rifles. — In order that shot 
can be fired in a rifle instead of a single bullet so 



o 



a 



f\' ROUND BULUT ^' MINIE BULLET 



onaii^ii 



C-CmNELURE b-FL/}T fiOSE. Z- HOLLOW NOSE 
OR GROOVED BULLET BULLET BULLET 



B.B. eo GR/IINS-), 



XKl 




CB. SHORT e LONG. 2'90/d?m 



LON&R/FLE. ^OOmATS 



f'2ZC/)LIBER BULLET 

Fig. 36 — Kinds of .22-Caliber Bullets. Arrows show weights 
of BB, CB, Short, Long and Long Rifle Bullets. 



making it easier to hit a mark shot cartridges, as 
they are called, have been put on the market. 

Shot cartridges to be used in a .22-caliber rim- 
fire rifle are made in two sizes, and these are (i) 
BB caps and (2) longs, the first being charged 
with black and semi-smokeless powders only, and 
the second can be had charged with either black, 
semi-smokeless or smokeless powders. They are 




Powder and Shot and SHell 99 

loaded with No. 12 shot encased in a thin covering 
of cardboard as shown in Fig. 37. 

About Buying Ammunition. — Cartridges: You 
will find it much cheaper to buy at least a thousand 
cartridges at a time. The price of .22-caliber long 
rifle cartridges is about $6.00 per thousand. 

Shells. — Shells for the 20-gauge shotgun are 
loaded with either black, semi-smokeless or smoke- 
less powders, and are 
loaded with shot rang- 
ing from I to 10 and 

BB. ^ cmOBOfilRDW/iO 

I have found that a TO HOLD SHOT IN 

2>^ - inch smokeless ^^S- 37-.22-Caliber Rim- 

, ... . ^ Fire Shot Cartridge, 

powder shell usmg 18 

grains of dense powder — Infallible preferred — 

and carrying y^ ounce of No. 8 shot to be a good 

all-round shell. They cost about $17.25 per case 

of five hundred. 

A cheaper shell which will do good work is the 
Referee brand made by the Peters Cartridge Com- 
pany only. It shoots semi-smokeless powder and 
is the only reliable shotgun shell using this kind of 
powder that I know of on the market. 

For a little 20-gauge gun use a 2j4-inch shell 
loaded with 2j^ drams of semi-smokeless powder 
which carries J^ ounce of No. 8 shot. These 



lOO Shooting for Boys 

shells, though much cheaper, compare very favor- 
ably with smokeless powder shells. They cost 
$12.25 P^^ case of five hundred. 

I never use black powder cartridges if I can help 
it because they foul and heat the barrels so quickly. 

Shot Cartridges for Rifles.— The BB shot car- 
tridges for rifles which I described a ways back 
cost about $8.00 per thousand; the long black 
powder cartridges cost $11.00 per thousand; the 
semi-smokeless $11.00 per thousand and the 
smokeless $12.50 per thousand. 



CHAPTER VII 
THE FLIGHT OF A BULLET 

KNOWING now how your gun is built and 
how it works, and having learned how a 
cartridge is made, the next thing you should 
find out is what happens when there is a cartridge 
in the firing chamber and you pull the trigger. 

Of course you will say that the powder shoots 
the bullet out of the cartridge, on through the bar- 
rel, and thence through the air until it hits the 
mark, or is stopped by hitting something else. And 
while all of this is true it is only a very small part 
of the truth, for there are a lot of things that take 
place between the first impulse of the bullet and its 
impact against the target. 

The flight of a bullet from the powder to the 
target is called the ballistics of shooting, and this 
scientific word means simply that all of the forces 
inside of a gun and outside of it which act in any 
way on a bullet have been worked out by some gun 
crank and it is my idea to explain them here. 

Now, the ballistics of shooting may be divided 
into two parts, and these are (a) internal ballistics, 

lOI 



102 Shooting for Boys 

that is, the forces which act on the bullet inside of 
the gun when it is fired up to and including the 
instant the bullet has left the muzzle of the gun, 
and (b) external ballistics, that is, the forces which 
act on the bullet from the moment it has left the 
muzzle until it has struck the target, and all of 
which I shall try to explain in simple language so 
that you can understand it. 



Internal Ballistics 

The Explosion of the Primer The very first 

thing that takes place when the firing-pin strikes the 
cartridge is the explosion of the primer. If it is a 
good primer it will send a large flame into the 
charge of powder on top of it in less than a thou- 
sandth of a second. (See A, Fig. 38.) 

What the Powder Does — While the fulminate 
of the primer explodes, the powder on top of it 
does not, or at least it should not, explode, but 
instead it should only burn when the flash from the 
primer strikes it and further it should burn slowly 
and evenly, one grain lighting the next one to it 
until the charge is all consumed. The idea is shown 
at B, in Fig. 38. 

Now, as every grain of powder burns it sets 
free a certain amount of gas and when nearly all 



The Flight of a Bullet 103 

of the charge is burned the gas generated by it is 
under a very high pressure and it pushes on all 
sides of the cartridge with equal force, but since 



FULMIN/)TE IN RIM 
WHICH H/IS^^^ 
,JU5T£XPL0DED 



e/1RR£L 



F 




2 



F/RJNG PIN WHICH POWDER BULLETIN 
H/1S JUST STRUCK CHARGE CRRTRlDGE CASE 
RIM OF C/iRTQIDGE 

A. WHEN THE FIRING PIN STRIKES THE CARTRIDGE 
POWDER NOT YET BURNT 




SHOWING POWDER 
ti/ILF BURNT 

B THE BURNING POWDER 



£XP/1NDINGG/1S£SMA)C£ FORCED BULLET 

FROM 
XA5E. 



• _. _^ _ f 

, ^^- ■ ^.^, o.J>4 ^ -J'-^~^g==r--:r,lJ II II I ^*^ 



POY^DER COMPLETELY BURNED 

C THE GASES FORCE THE BULLET FROM THE CASE 

Fig. 38 — The Explosion of a Cartridge. 

it can't get out except at the open end it has got 
to start the bullet in order to do so. 

As the charge of powder burns the pressure of 
the gas grows greater and ever greater until the 
inertia of the bullet — that is its dead weight — is 
overcome and it is forced to leave the shell as 
shown at C, in Fig. 38. 



I04 Shooting for Boys 

What Happens in the Barrel. — As the bullet is 
shot out of the cartridge by the expanding gases, it 
starts down the barrel of the rifle at a high speed, 
or velocity as it is called, and the rifling makes it 
spin as it goes. The diagram Fig. 39 shows how 
the bullet spins. 

In order to overcome the inertia of a body a 
force must be applied to it for a length of time that 



-fr ^0/V(^ 



Q^ 



BULLET 5PINS 
fi\rH/5 w/fy 



/IRRO)N ShO)NS LINE OF FLIGHT 
Fig. 39 — The Bullet Spins on Its Long Axis. 

is in proportion to the weight of the body; for this 
reason, as you will plainly see, time is an important 
factor in the moving force of powder and the 
ballistic value of a powder, which means the value 
of a powder to give a bullet of a given weight a 
certain energy and hence its velocity, depends on 
the length of time needed for its complete combus- 
tion. 

In an absolutely perfect cartridge — though it is 
not possible to make one — the bullet would be given 
an evenly increased velocity by the pressure exerted 
on its flat end, or base, until it left the muzzle of 
the gun and the last grain of powder would be 



m 



The Flight of a Bullet 105 

changed into gas just as the bullet left the muzzle 
of the gun. 

In this purely imaginary perfect cartridge every 
bit of the stored-up energy of the powder, or 
potential energy as it is called in physics, would be 
changed into energy of motion, or kinetic energy, 
and this would be imparted to the bullet. 

Of course such complete change is not possible, 
for a large part of the stored-up, or potential 
energy is spent in heat and part of the energy of 
motion, or kinetic energy, is also converted into 
heat by the friction set up between the barrel of 
the rifle and the bullet. 

If the Powder Explodes — You have observed 
that there is a considerable difference in the action 
of powder when it burns and when it explodes. 
As I said before, a slow, even-burning powder 
produces much the best result, while with a powder 
that explodes, or detonates as it is called — which 
means that all of the stored-up gases in it are set 
free at once — its ballistic value is not only very 
much less, but it sets up a quick pressure in the 
gun that usually is dangerous. 

When the powder detonates instead of liberating 
its gases by slowly burning, the cause of it may 
often be traced to the use of a small-grain powder 
in a gun of large bore. Under these untoward 



io6 Shooting for Boys 

conditions when the primer goes off the grains of 
powder nearest to it are lit and because of the high 
pressure of the gases set up by this too rapid igni- 
tion the grains nearest the bullet are forced up 
against the end of the latter and crushed. 

When this takes place enough heat is developed 
to explode, or detonate, the forward grains with 
lightning-like rapidity ; this in turn causes an excess 
of pressure at the bullet, which is often three times 
as great as that of a cartridge which explodes under 
normal conditions — that is, by the powder burn- 
ing slowly — and as a result the barrel may be 
blown to pieces. 

This is one of the reasons why cartridges should 
never be loaded by any one except an experienced 
loader. To prevent detonating, the powder should 
be left loose in the shell, so that there is an air 
space between the powder and the bullet. 

The air space naturally lessens the pressure on 
the forward grains of powder and in this way the 
risk of detonating and the disastrous results that 
sometimes follow are reduced to a bare possibility. 

With smokeless, or nitro powders as they are 
called, the accidents that have occurred from det- 
onating are usually caused by the amateur shell 
loader getting dense powder and bulk-for-bulk 
powder confused and using the former where he 



The Flight of a Bullet 107 

should have used the latter. To safeguard against 
all these things taking place, buy your ammunition 
ready-made and buy a make that is tried and 
true. 

Fouling of the Barrel. — Fouling is another im- 
portant branch of internal ballistics. The chief 
cause of fouling is the fact that all of the various 
substances of which powder is made do not burn 
up and form gases, but instead a part of them are 
reduced to a liquid or a solid state, and these are 
forced along toward the muzzle of the gun by the 
gases of the powder that is burned up. 

The lands, as the sharp corners of the rifling are 
called, tend to hold these particles or deposits, with 
the result that the barrel begins to get crusted. 
Each time a shot is fired a little more of the deposit 
is formed and a little more fouling results, until 
finally the crust is so thick that the bullet in pass- 
ing through the barrel gets scraped and this leaves 
small particles of lead behind. 

The combined effect of the lead and fouling 
causes the barrel to rust, and many a fine gun has 
been spoiled in this way as well as making it bad 
to use, for fouling is very apt to lower the velocity 
of the bullet as well as to throw it out of its true 
path. 

The Kick, Jump and Flip of a Gun. — Internal 



io8 Shooting for Boy^ 

ballistics also have to do with the kick, jump and 
Mp of a gun. 

The kick, or more properly the recoil, of a gun 
is its movement in the opposite direction to the way 
the bullet is going, that is, straight back against the 
shoulder, as shown in Fig. 40. 

Now, when a cartridge is shot off if the resist- 
ance of the air to the bullet is equal in pressure to 



^Cf- ,, ..„.\ 

r/tf 



^^^^ 




Fig. 40 — The Kick, Jump and Flip of a Gun. 

the weight of the gun then the bullet will not be 
shot out of the gun, but the gun will be shot back, 
or recoil from the bullet. 

The resistance of the air depends on the speed of 
the bullet, and since the bullet is moving at a low 
velocity just after the cartridge explodes, and since 
the butt of the gun is resting against your shoulder, 
it is the bullet that leaves the gun and not the gun 
that leaves the bullet. 

After the bullet has left the muzzle of the gun 
the gases rush out, but these are met and opposed 



The Flight of a Bullet 109 

by the resistance of the air just as the bullet was 
before it, so that, though it may seem strange on 
first thought, the gun really acts as if the gases 
were rushing into the barrel instead. Hence the 
gun does not recoil, and the kick is not felt until 
after the bullet has left the muzzle. 

Another and more simple reason why the bullet 
leaves the gun instead of the gun leaving the bullet, 
is that it takes a longer time to move the heavy gun 
from its position of rest than it takes to move the 
lighter bullet. 

In auto-loading guns hardly any kick reaches the 
shoulder, for the energy of the recoil is made to 
do useful work in reloading the gun. 

The blast, as the rush of the gases out of the 
barrel is commonly called, also has a direct effect 
on the velocity of the bullet. It has been shown by 
experiment that the instant after the bullet has left 
the barrel the blast increases its velocity in the 
neighborhood of 20 feet per second. 

The jump of a rifle is often the cause of an 
otherwise good shot making a poor target. This 
results from the uneven expansion of the barrel due 
to the heat of the explosion and the quick pas- 
sage of the bullet through the barrel. 

Because of this jump rifles shooting black 
powder usually shoot a little lower than where they 



no Shooting for Boys 

are aimed and those shooting smokeless powder 
shoot a Httle higher than where they are aimed. 

The mp of a rifle, also shown in Fig. 40, is due 
to the same cause as the jump — that is, uneven ex- 
pansion of the barrel — and this tends to throw 
the bullet to the right or the left of the spot you 
have aimed at. 

External Ballistics 

The Part That Rifling Plays.— The instant the 
bullet strikes the air after leaving the muzzle of the 
gun certain other forces begin to act on it, and these 
make up what is known as the science of external 
ballistics. 

First of all, the rifling of the gun, as I have 
pointed out before, makes the bullet spin on its 
long axis. If a long bullet — that is, a bullet whose 
length is greater than its diameter — was shot from 
a smooth-bore gun the air resistance would make it 
rotate, that is, turn over and over, on its short 
axis. 

But when a bullet leaves a barrel that is rifled 
it spins on its long axis like a top, and this more 
than offsets any tendency it may have to spin round 
on its short axis, and the result is that it bores its 
way through the air in a much straighter line than 
is taken by an ordinary round bullet, 



The Flight of a Bullet in 

Long-range Bullets. — Just as a long bullet is 
better than a round one so certain kinds of long bul- 
lets are better than other long bullets. 

The kind of bullets that give the best results 
for long-range shooting are those that are known 
under the name of elongated cannelure, or grooved 
bullets with sharp or flat heads. The purpose of 
the cannelures, or grooves, on a bullet is for lubri- 
cation, that is, the grooves are filled with grease. 

You can increase the power of your rifle to a 
measurable extent by using a Hat-nosed, hollow- 
pointed bullet and its use will also give a Hatter 
trajectory, as you will soon see. 

The Path of a Bullet. — Air Resistance: The 
trajectory of a bullet is the path it takes from the 
time it leaves the muzzle of the gun until it reaches 
the target. It is shown in Fig. 41. As the bullet 
leaves the muzzle of the gun and meets the head- 
on resistance of the air, of course the latter tends 
to retard or hold it back in its flight. The amount 
of air resistance depends on the shape of the bul- 
let, its cross-sectional area, and on its velocity; the 
density of the air also has a retarding influence in 
a small measure on the flight of a bullet, that is it 
tends to hold it back. 

The Force of Gravity. — But the chief factor in 
shaping the path of a bullet as well as retarding its 



112 



Shooting for Boys 



flight is that greatest of all forces — the gravitation 
of the earth; of course you know that the earth 
attracts all bodies upon or near its surface — 
whether it is the moon or a bullet — and this attrac- 



>?//? RESi5Tmce 




iSOYOSi \ 

ARROWS REPRESENT THE 
PULL OF &R/9VITy 

Fig. 41 — The Path, or Trajectory, of a Bullet. 

tion pulls the bullet as it flies along down to the 
earth. 

The Speed of a Bullet. — From your school 
physics you have learned that a body will fall about 
16 feet the first second, 48 feet the next second, 
and so on until it strikes the earth. But if you 
will throw a stone straight out and so give it 
velocity — that is, speed — it will fall at the same 
rate as if you dropped it, but its speed will make 
it travel farther before it strikes the ground. 

Now, since a bullet follows the same laws of 
gravitation and velocity as any other body, it must 



The Flight of a Bullet 113 

be dear that if it has a low velocity it will strike 
the earth a very short distance from where it left 
the muzzle of the barrel, but, on the other hand, 
if it has a high velocity a longer distance will be 
covered between its discharge from the barrel and 
its contact with the earth. 

From this you will readily see that the velocity 
of a bullet has a great deal to do with its trajectory, 
or the path of its flight, as well as gravity and air 
resistance; in fact, the velocity of the bullet, the 
resistance of the air and the pull of gravity all de- 

THEORETICAL LINE OF FLIGHT dUUSEYt 

BULLET REVOL VES IN BULLE 7"/ 

THIS DIRECTION HITS HERE 

Fig. 42— The Drift of a Bullet. 

termine the distance to which a bullet will go and 
the shape of its path. 

The Flight of a Bullet. — ^The flight of a bullet 
can be beautifully shown by a stream of water 
thrown from the nozzle of a garden hose, where 
each particle of water is a freely moving body. 

As you no doubt know, the flight of a bullet from 
a rifle is not in a straight line but in a long para- 
bola just like a stream of water from a hose. The 



114 Shooting for Boys 

bullet starts to drop the instant it leaves the muz- 
zle, but in high-power rifles this drop is not notice- 
able up to about I GO yards and in some cases even 
more. 

At distances greater than this pointblank range, 
as it is called, you have to raise, or elevate the 
muzzle of the gun and by so doing you make the 
bullet travel upward in a long curve for about two- 
thirds of its trajectory and then it falls sharply to 
the target. 

Drift. — Besides the trajectory, or curved path, 
you have to allow for the drift of the bullet, and 
this is shown in the diagram Fig. 42. This drift of 
the bullet is caused by the rapid rotation that the 
rifling of the barrel gives it; in a rifle with a 
right-hand twist the bullet spins rapidly to the 
right and when shot over long ranges it moves to 
the right, and this is caused by the bullet rolling 
itself over in the air. 

In some rifles there is a slight side wise jump to 
the left, and the way to find the total horizontal 
deviation of the bullet without taking windage into 
consideration is to subtract the amount of the 
jump from the amount of the drift. 

Windage. — Another thing that must be thought 
of in shooting over long ranges is windage — ^that 
is, the deflection of the bullet from its natural 



The Flight of a Bullet 



"5 



course by the wind — but this will be described in 
the next chapter. 

Penetration. — The last and final thing that hap- 
pens in the flight of a bullet is its penetration of the 
target, that is, when it hits the mark you have 
shot at. 

Both the .22-caliber long-rifle black and smoke- 
less powder cartridges will penetrate five %-inch 



'111 



Fig- 43 — The Penetration of a .22-Caliber Bullet (Through 
Five ^-Inch Boards). 



pine boards at a pointblank range of 15 feet from 
the muzzle when the regulation 40-grain bullet is 
used. The penetration of a bullet at pointblank 
range in pine boards is shown in Fig. 43. 



CHAPTER VIII 
HOW TO BE A CRACK SHOT 

OF course you have read the exploits of 
Cooper's Leathersfocking and his prowess 
with his rifle — or if you haven't you must 
surely do so, for he is a cracking hero and the 
tales are mighty good ones. 

And because you are a fact and he was merely 
a fancy is no reason why you should not turn out 
to be as crack a shot as he, for you can have your 
pick of the family of .22-caliber rifles, and any 
one of them would throw his ancient gun in the 
shade. 

The Shooting Outfit You Need. — To become a 
sharpshooter there are but four things you need 
that money can buy, and these are ( i ) a first-rate 
gun; (2) plenty of ammunition; (3) a range to 
shoot on, and (4) a target to shoot at. 

The kind of a gun and the sort of ammunition 
you should buy have been described, and I am tak- 
ing it for granted that you have already got these. 
As for the range your environment, and perhaps 
the governor's bank account, will determine in a 

116 



How to Be a Crack Shot 



117 



large measure whether it shall be in the house, in 
the backyard, at some shooting gallery, on the 
grounds of a private or a public gun club, in the 
Adirondacks or Rocky Mountains, or in far-off 
India or East Africa. About ranges and how tar^ 
gets are made and used and of their accessories 
more will be told in the next chapter. 

The Boy Behind the Gun. — ^While all of the 
above equipment is needed to shoot with, whether 





Fig. 44 — The Boy Behind the Gun. 

you are a beginner or an old-timer, there is (5) 
another element that goes with them to make a 
sharpshooter, and this is the hoy behind the gun. 

This personal equation, as it is called, and which 
means your mental and physical make-up, consists 
of just two things, and these are (a) a pair of 
quick, sharp eyes, and {h) the blood of a true 
sportsman coursing through your veins; and if you 
are gifted with these it doesn't matter one iota 



ii8 Shooting for Boys 

whether you have freckles on your neck or any- 
thing else is the matter with you, you can become 
as good a shot as ever stood on a firing-line. 

On Learning How to Shoot — In learning to 
shoot it will make your first lessons easier if you 
can get some personal instruction, and this ought 
not to be very hard to do, for in nearly every 
family there is some one who knows the gun and 
how to use it. 

But I am writing this book for the boy who has 
no one who can give him pointers on how to shoot 
right, and to learn to shoot the wrong way is 
worse than not learning at all. The following 
notes on correct shooting will put you on the right 
track. 

How to Hold a Gun — Just as there is a proper 
way to hold a pen when you write, or a telegraph 
key when you send a message, so too there is a 
certain way to hold a gun which sharpshooters have 
found to give the best results ; and besides there are 
various positions they have learned to take that 
help the score along. 

Standing Position. — One of the correct standing 
positions is shown at Fig. 45. To get this position 
stand side wise with your feet about 10 or 12 inches 
apart and your left side toward the target. 

Hold your rifle with the butt firmly against your 



I 



How to Be a Crack Shot 119 




Fig. 45— Correct Standing Position. 



I20 Shooting for Boys 

right shoulder with your cheek pressed against the 
stock and your right arm resting against your body 
to steady the rifle. Don't strain the muscles of 
your body, but let them be free and natural, for if 
your body is not perfectly at ease even so small a 
thing as the beating of your heart may affect your 
aim. 

Kneeling Position, — In Fig. 46 one of the proper 
kneeling positions is shown. Your right knee 
should point directly toward the bullseye and you 
should rest the elbow of your left arm over your 
left knee. 

But when I say elbow I do not mean the point 
of it, which is sharp and wobbly, but the part of 
it just back of the point which is flat and steady. 
In this kneeling position your right arm is not 
rested against the body, but instead it is held along 
the side of the stock. 

Prone Position. — The correct prone position — 
that is, lying flat on the stomach with the face 
downward — is shown in Fig. 47. When shooting 
in this position spread your legs wide apart with 
your toes out and heels in; then raise your body 
and rest both elbows on the ground so that you 
are in an easy position and raise your right shoul- 
der a trifle. 

Place the butt of the rifle against your right 



How to Be a Crack Shot 121 




122 



Shooting for Boys 



shoulder, with your cheek resting sHghtly against 
it and let the thumb of your right hand lie along the 
stock; and you are ready to blaze away. 

Before you do any actual shooting, though, you 
should practice all of these positions until they 



^J^-^ 








Fig. 47 — Correct Prone Position. 

come to you naturally, for correct position plays an 
important part in using a gun to the best advantage. 

How to Aim a Rifle. — After having these pre- 
liminary details down fine you are ready to learn 
how to aim a rifle. Now, there are two different 
ways to do this and both of them are used by 
shooters at the present time. 

The first way is to take a slow and painstaking 
aim at the target and without a thought or a care 
as to how long it takes to do it. This method is 
called sight shooting, and this is the way that is in 
general use today by most target-shooters, espe- 



How to Be a Crack Shot 123 

dally if the target is a fixed one. You should 
learn to shoot this way first. 

The second method is called snap-shooting, and 
this is the quick, spontaneous way of pointing a 
gun at the target and pulling the trigger. This 
is the style that Buffalo Bill and other old-timers 
used in shooting glass balls or other flying objects. 
This style of shooting is coming into vogue again, 
and in due time you should practice it. 

Sights and Sighting. — After you have taken the 
correct position — whichever one you want — look 
through the sights with your right eye and keep 
the left one closed. 

If the sights are of the ordinary kind the rear 
sight — that is, the one on the end of the barrel 
nearest your eye — will be of the crotch, leaf, bar 
or V-style as it is variously called, and the front 
sight, which is fixed on the barrel close to the 
muzzle, will be of the knife-edge or head type. 

About Sights. — In both the leaf and bar sights 
you will see by looking at A and B in Fig. 48 that 
a V-shaped crotch is cut in the upper edge, and 
hence the many names this kind is called. 

A knife-edge sight is one that has a more or less 
sharp edge set into the front end of the barrel, 
while a bead sight is made very much the same way 
but instead of a knife-edge it has a round end, or 



124 Shooting for Boys 

bead as it is called, on it and these are shown at 
C and D in Fig. 48. Personally I like the bead 
sight the best. 

With the ordinary crotch sights there is always 
a shimmer on the barrel and the receiver, caused 

/^eM SIGHTS 

Pi-UftFOR y SIGHT ^^^=^ %'CROTCHOR. dm 
(RE/IR VIEW) (rUOy , SIGHT ^ 




t — 'n 




TH£L YM/IN HOODED 
yfPER TORE 5 1 OH 7 YV/TH 
V^INP GU/IGE 



C- BE/ID SIGHT \>- KNIFE EDGE SIGHT 

(SIDE view) (5IDE VIEW) 

FR0NT5IGHTS 

Fig. 48 — Various Kinds of Sights. 

by the reflection of the light on these parts, which 
is very hard on the eye, but rear sights are made 
by the Lyman Gun Corporation that are larger 
and have a bead in the middle of a ring, or hoop, 
as shown at E in Fig. 48; this does away with 
the shimmer of the light and besides it shows the 
whole of the object aimed at. 

Sights are also made that have a wind-gauge 
adjustment and by means of which a shooter can 



How to Be a Crack Shot 125 

allow for windage as well as raise his sights for 
any range with precision. 

About Sighting. — Now, if you will look through 
the rear sight and down the barrel to the front 
sight, and shift your gun a Httle up or down, left 
or right, until the bottom of the bead of the front 
sight just touches the bottom of the V of the rear 
sight, and at the same time get the top of the 
bead of the front sight exactly under the bottom 
of the bullseye, as shown at A and B in Fig. 48, you 
will have taken aim, and if at this instant you pull 
the trigger the bullet will hit the mark. 

In aiming you must also be very careful that 
the barrel of your gun is perfectly straight, for 
if it is canted as it is called — that is, tilted to one 
side or the other — it will throw the line of sight 
out of true and this will make you miss your mark. 

When to Pull the Trigger. — ^When you take aim 
the muzzle of your gun will probably waver a bit, 
but just as the rear sight, front sight and bullseye 
are all in a line you must pull the trigger back 
evenly and not with a quick jerk. 

To pull the trigger with even pressure you must 
use the first joint of your index, or trigger finger, 
alone, and you should so train it that your hand 
does not involuntarily contract, that is, close up 
of its own accord. After some practice you will 



126 Shooting for Boys 

be able to take aim with a fair degree of certainty 
and to make a pretty good target. 

How to Practice Shooting. — When you start to 
practice make your target range about 25 feet, and 
as you become more proficient increase the distance 
until you can throw ten consecutive shots in a i^- 
inch circle at a distance of 100 yards. You are 
then some shot. 

The mistake that most beginners make is to in- 
crease the range too fast, and so I say unto you 
for your own benefit and behoof go slow and by 
going slowly you will go surely. When you can 
put ten shots one after the other through a post- 
age stamp at 50 yards you won't need any one to 
tell you that you are really an expert shot. 

The Art of Snap-shooting — ^While snap-shoot- 
ing will be very much harder than sight-shooting 
for you to get the knack of, still you will be well 
repaid for the time and trouble you take to prac- 
tice it. 

Snap-shooting is done like this: you don't aim 
your gun through the sights as you do in sight- 
shooting, but you take aim by instinctive sighting, 
that is, by bringing the gun to your shoulder, look- 
ing straight at the target or other object that you 
want to hit and pulling the trigger. In this way 
you get a bead on it automatically. 



How to Be a Crack Shot 127 

When beginning the practice of snap-shooting it 
is a good plan to set up a fixed target at about 25 
feet and then raise and point your gun at it quickly, 
and as you do so keep both eyes open and focused 
on the target and not on the barrel of your gun. 

After having practiced this exercise until you 
feel that you could hit the target it is time to use 
ammunition and, as the old saw goes, if at first you 
don't succeed try, try again until you do. As you 
grow more and more skillful you should increase 
your range until you are shooting 100 yards in this 
way. When you become an expert at snap-shoot- 
ing and use a repeating gun you can pump 12 or 15 
shots into an amazingly small target and with 
lightning-like rapidity. 

The Science of Trap-shooting. — When you can 
make the kind of a target described above with 
your rifle you are in a fair way to become a good 
trap-shooter with a shotgun, that is, you will be 
able to break clay targets thrown from a trap with 
considerable confidence and every chance of suc- 
cess. 

As a matter of fact, shooting either clay halls 
with a rifle or clay pigeons thrown into the air by 
a trap with a shotgun cannot be done nearly as well 
by the get ready, take aim and fire method as it can 
by the snap-shot method, though many trap- 



128 Shooting for Boys 

shooters still use the sight aim, but they are back 
numbers in the shooting game. But more about 
clay targets and traps to throw them with anon. 

Trajectory, Windage and Drift Again. — When 
shooting in closed ranges the trajectory and drift 
and the action of the wind on the bullet, described 
in the last chapter, need not be taken into con- 
sideration for the following reasons : ( i ) because 
the range is not long enough to produce a curved 
trajectory; (2) the drift in so short a distance is 
scarcely noticeable, and (3) there is little or no 
wind. 

If you are shooting a .22-caliber rifle you need 
not bother overmuch about these things, for the 
range is too short; but for long-range shooting 
these three factors are very important and espe- 
cially if you are shooting a large-caliber gun. The 
way to overcome these deviations of the bullet 
from a straight line is to use sights which are made 
so that you can allow for them. 

About Gun Silencers. — With some beginners 
the noise of a gun seems to make them flinch, and 
if it should so happen that you are one of them try 
a Maxim silencer. This is a device that is fitted 
on the muzzle of the gun (see Appendix I for a 
complete description) that kills the noise of firing. 

After using a gun for a while you will most 



How to Be a Crack Shot 129 

likely lose this tendency to flinch, and you can then 
take it off. Don't get discouraged if you flinch, for 
there are some shooters that never get over this 
habit, and yet they manage somehow to make good 
scores. 

A Last Pointer. — As a last helpful hint on how 
to become a crack shot just remember these two 
things: First, every time you shoot if you do so 
with the avowed intention of improving your skill 
you are just that much nearer to making a target 
of success. Second, if you do not study out just 
why each shot that misses its mark does so and then 
try to correct it the next shot you make, all the 
shooting you may do won't improve your marks- 
manship, at least so that you can notice it. In 
other words, brains are a factor in hitting the bulls- 
eye of a target when shooting just as much as they 
are in the game of life. 

And if you will do the things in this book the 
way I have told you to do them, and then practice 
for half an hour every day, it will not be very 
long until you will be able to hold your own against 
all comers, nearly. 

Taking Care of Your Gun — There is, come to 
think of it, another secret in being able to run up 
high scores, and that is a clean gun. 

No matter how good a shot you are you can 



130 Shooting for Boys 

never shoot straight if your gun-barrel is fouled, 
and a fellow who doesn't think enough of his gun 
to keep it clean will never have the pride necessary 
to make even a good shot. 

Your Cleaning Outfit. — When you buy your gun 
get a cleaning-rod at the same time. This is made 
of either iron, brass, hickory or celluloid with a 
handle on one end and a slot in the other end to 
take a rag wiper. A rod costs from 10 to 50 cents 
according to the kind. 

Canton flannel makes the best wipers. A bottle 
of sperm oil or sewing machine oil will do for 
lubricating the different parts of the action ; a bot- 
tle of raw linseed oil for polishing the stock and 
hand guard, and some cosmic oil, or cosmoline, for 
cleaning the firing chamber and bore will make up 
the rest of your cleaning outfit. . 

To Clean Your Rifle. — To take down the gun, 
if it is a .22-caliber rifle, you need only to un- 
screw the large screw on the underside of the re- 
ceiver, when the barrel can be easily taken from 
the receiver and stock and you can now get at the 
barrel from the breech end. 

Cut a patch of flannel i inch square, slip it into 
the slot of the cleaning-rod, dip it into the cosmic 
oil and run it through the barrel from the breech 
end. When the wiper has come out of the muzzle 



How to Be a Crack Shot 131 

don't attempt to pull it back until you have removed 
the wiper. Never clean the barrel from the muzzle 
end, as you will almost be sure to spoil the rifling 
near the muzzle. Neither need you be afraid of 
using too many wipers, and never use anything hut 
Cosmic oil, or cosmoline, for cleaning the firing 
chamber and bore. 

To clean the action take the screws out of the 
side of the receiver, when the lever, hammer and 
trigger can be removed. Wipe off all of the parts 
with a dry rag first and then with a rag with a few 
drops of either sperm or machine oil on it, but be 
careful not to get too much oil on them. 

Rub the stock and hand guard with raw linseed 
oil and polish by rubbing them with your hand. 

Corrosion by Smokeless Powder. — Should you 
use smokeless powder cartridges you should clean 
your gun as soon after firing as you can, for nitro 
powders leave a residue that has a tendency to eat 
into the barrel. 

The following method is recommended by the 
War Department for the care of Springfield rifles, 
and it is just as good for your gun : Thread a bit 
of flannel into the slot of the cleaning-rod and soak 
it in a solution made by dissolving J4 pound of 
sal soda in a pint of hot water and clean the bore 
thoroughly. 



132 Shooting for Boys 

Dry the bore with dry bits of flannel and finally 
oil it with cosmic oil as described above. After it 
has stood 24 hours the bore should be cleaned 
again, as the gases from the powder are forced into 
the pores of the steel and unless it is cleaned the 
second time it is apt to rust. 

Removal of Metallic Fouling. — How a gun is 
fouled and how particles of lead are scraped from 
the bullets on going through the barrel has been 
described in a chapter that has gone before. 

The following solution for removing metallic 
fouling is also recommended by the War Depart- 
ment: Get J^ ounce of ammonium persulphate; 
100 grains ammonium carbonate, 3 ounces of 28 
per cent ammonia and 2 ounces of water, which 
will make enough remover to clean ten rifles. 
When you buy these chemicals have the persulphate 
and carbonate powdered ; then mix them together, 
add the ammonia and water, stir the solution well 
and let it stand for half an hour before using. 

Push a cork into the breech end of the barrel, 
fill the bore with the solution and cork up the 
muzzle. Let the solution stay in the bore for a 
couple of hours, or until it has cut the metallic foul- 
ing, when it must be emptied and the bore cleaned 
out with dry flannel as before. You must be 
mighty careful to remove every particle of the solu- 



How to Be a Crack Shot 133 

tion from the bore, for it will rust it very quickly. 
The solution, which is rather costly, can be used 
several times. 

When You are All Through. — Unless you are 
going to use your rifle right away put it in a cover 
or a case, the purpose of which is to keep the gun 
looking nice as well as to make it easy to carry. 
A cloth rifle cover can be bought for as little as 
50 cents and on up to $2.50; it consists of two or 
more pockets into which you slip the stock and 
barrel of the gun, after having taken it down, and 
the cleaning implements. A rifle case made of 
leather will last much longer and will keep the 
gun in better condition than a cover; you can get 
one at any price you want to pay, from $5.00 to 
$10.00. 



CHAPTER IX 
ABOUT TARGET PRACTICE 

THERE is a lot of fun in roving around, 
especially if you have a partner, and taking 
pot shots at any and every thing you see, 
but this is a sport that only a few fellows can in- 
dulge in. 

If you live in the city the law won't let you shoot 
whenever and wherever you like, and if you live in 
the country this kind of promiscuous shooting is 
also very often tabooed. 

The Shooting Gallery. — The only chance if you 
live in a community that is at all thickly settled is 
to shoot in a range. Nearly every city has one or 
more shooting galleries, as they are called, but to 
take an occasional three shots for a nickel won't 
help your marksmanship very much. 

A better way is to make a deal with the owner 
of the gallery so that you can use your own rifle 
and ammunition and his range and targets, but even 
this is a poor makeshift and is never very satis- 
factory, and I would not advise this sort of an 
arrangement except as a last resort. 

134 



About Target Practice 135 

A Home Shooting Range — The next best ar- 
rangement is a range in your own home, and if 
you can get a clear space 6 to 10 feet wide and 30 
to 40 feet long you can easily make a range that 
will give you a good deal of pleasure and much 
needed practice. 

I knew a boy in New York City who lived in a 
big apartment house and who had a long hall fitted 
up as a range. But I wouldn't recommend this 
plan to you or to any one else. However, there 
are plenty of basements and roofs, though, in 
every town and city that could be rigged up easily, 
safely and cheaply. 

What is Needed for a Range. — The four main 
things that are needed in fixing up a shooting range 
are: (i) the targets to shoot at; (2) a good serv- 
iceable backstop to catch the bullets and hold them ; 
(3) a protection for the side walls around the 
targets, and (4) some mats to kneel or lie on when 
you are shooting from a kneeling or prone position. 

And right here I want to say that the targets 
must be well lighted, and for this reason you should 
fix up your range where there is plenty of daylight 
if possible, for lamplight, whether it is the dizzy 
light of a candle or the brilliant beam of the in- 
candescent Mazda, is hard on the eyes; and it is 
better not to shoot at all than to strain your eyes. 



136 Shooting for Boys 

Where artificial Hghts must be used then the 
lamps should be arranged back of reflectors that are 
fixed about 4 feet in front of and just above the 
target so that the direct light will shine on it and 
riot in your eyes. 




/I- JJNJQONjmGET B- /I P/IPER T/JRGET 

Fig. 49 — Two Kinds of Fixed Targets. 

The Kinds of Targets to Use — There are several 
kinds of targets, and these come under two gen- 
eral heads, which are (i) fixed targets and (2) 
moving targets. Whichever kind you use you can 
buy them cheaper than you can make them. 

There are two kinds of fixed targets in general 
use, and these are {a) flat, disks of iron and (&) 
those made of paper, A plain^ round iron target 



About Target Practice 137 

for .22-caliber cartridges can be bought for about 
$2.50, and a larger one having a 12-inch disk with 
a bell back of the bullseye and a bird on top of it 
as shown at A in Fig. 49, can be had for $4.00. 

When you fail to make a bullseye the bullet 
makes a black mark on the target and these marks 
can be painted out with some white paint. The 
advantage of an iron target is that it can be used 
over and over and the only trouble with it is that 
a bullet sometirnes glances off. 

Paper targets are the best kind for you to use, 
for they are both safe and cheap. You can buy 
them in sizes made for ranges of various lengths 
from 25 yards up to 200 yards. The right kind of 
a target is made of heavy glazed paper, and for 
a 25-yard range the official size is 5 inches in di- 
ameter with a ^-inch bullseye; for 50 yards it has 
a diameter of 10 inches and a bullseye of 2 inches, 
and for 100 yards it has a diameter of 20 inches 
and a bullseye of 4 inches. One of these targets is 
shown at B in Fig. 49. , 

The targets are to be glued or tacked on to a 
bullet catcher and this can be done with Le Page's, 
or any other good glue, or by means of thumb 
tacks. 

How to Make a Bullet Catcher. — Robert 
Houdin, the famous French conjurer of half a 



138 Shooting for Boys 

century ago, amused and mystified his audiences 
by catching bullets shot at him in his teeth, but the 
bullet catcher I shall tell you about is merely a 
device to prevent the bullets from glancing, or 
ricocheting as it is called, from a hard backstop and 
perhaps injuring the shooter or damaging the 
furniture or both. 

It is also a good scheme to use a bullet catcher, 
for in these days of wartime prices it may be worth 
your while if you and your friends do considerable 
shooting to save the spent lead and sell it to a junk- 
man some day, for the price of a few dozen boxes 
of cartridges. And if you have a very saving 
streak in you, about which I have " me doots," 
then save the empty cases, for copper is worth even 
more than lead. 

To make a bullet catcher build a box of %-inch 
pine boards 10 inches wide, 11 inches high and 14 
inches long. The box and the two pieces which 
form the front of it are shown in Fig. 50. It 
should be put together with screws and not nailed, 
as nails soon work loose from the constant hammer- 
ing of the bullets. 

After you have the box made and before you 
screw on the front pieces of wood line the back of 
the box with a ^-inch thick piece of sheet iron 
and the top, bottom and sides of the box can be 



About Target Practice 139 

lined with thinner sheet iron. A hole is bored in 
the upper part of the back board to hang it up by, 
and it is then ready to have the targets tacked on 
to it. A bullet catcher of this size will hold two 
5-inch targets, so that you and your pal can try out 
your skill at shooting at one and the same time. 

The next thing on the list is to get a piece of 
sheet iron J^ inch thick, 3 feet wide and 4 feet 



TARGETS GO 
HERS 




SHEET 
IRON ^ 
LINING- 



t 



y 



ILSHEZT 
IRON UNUbLO. 



CROSS-SECTION VIEW OF 
BULLET CATCHER 



THE BULLET CATCHER 

COMPLETE 



Fig. 50— A Bullet Catcher. 



long for a backstop, and this should be nailed up 
to the wall so that you don't have to take it down 
each time you shoot. Of course if this cannot be 
done it is possible to take it down and put it up 
every time you practice, but it is bothersome to do 
it and I don't like bother when I'm out for sport. 



140 Shooting for Boys 

The bullet catcher is, naturally, hung in the mid- 
dle of the backstop. 

When you shoot from a standing position the 
backstop, bullet catcher and target are nailed up 
so that the latter are about even with your eyes. 
When shooting from a kneeling position the same 
rule applies and when shooting from the prone 
position the target should be about i8 inches from 
the floor. 

The main thing in lighting lip targets by lamps 
of some kind is to throw a good light on them. 
If your house is wired and your range is in it or 
just outside of it and you know how to do elec- 
tric wiring ^ it will not be very hard for you to 
rig up some lights ; gas lighting is harder and more 
expensive to install than electric lights, while oil 
lamps are easier and cheaper. 

Another easy way and a pretty good one is to 
get a couple of acetylene lamps such as are made 
for campers and set them up on each side of the 
target so that both of them will throw their light 
directly on it. Lamps of this kind can be bought 
for about $i.oo apiece. 

An old camp blanket will pass for a mat for 
kneeling and prone shooting, or what is " just as 

* Directions for electric-wiring will be found in The 
Book of Electricity by the present author. 



About Target Practice 141 

good," as a parrot would say, is a mat made by 
sewing two or three pieces of carpet, that are laid 
one on top of the other, together. Better mats can 
be bought and it must not be forgotten that when 
shooting from these positions, to be comfortable 
promotes accuracy. 

How to Make a Swinging Target. — ^With very 
little ingenuity you can make a swinging target 
that will give you a chance to practice not only 
sight-shooting but snap-shooting as well on a slow 
or a fast moving object, that is, if your range is 
out-of-doors and it is amply protected with a 
backstop. 

To make a swinging target saw out a board of 
I -inch thick stuff, 12 inches square, and fasten a 
paper target to it with thumb tacks. Now hang 
the board from a convenient nail in front of the 
backstop so that it can swing freely by means of a 
piece of string, or what is better, by a strip of 
wood I inch thick and of whatever length you want 
it, and hinge the top of it to a support like the 
pendulum of a clock. It goes without saying that 
if you want a quick-swinging target the pendulum 
must be short and for a slow-swinging target the 
pendulum must be long. 

The Right Kind of a Range. — ^Wherever you 
live, whether it is in the city or the country, you 



142 Shooting for Boys 

are not likely to have any trouble in finding the 
right kind of a site for a range. 

To build and conduct a range on as large a scale 
as the one I shall tell you about here will cost some- 
thing both for materials and for putting it up unless 
you and your friends get busy and do the work 
yourselves. 

Now the question with most boys is how to get 
the necessary wherewithal and to do this you ought 
to, by rights, start a rifle club, as this will make 
things easier from the point of finances and far 
pleasanter from the point of sociability, all of which 
you will find out about in the next chapter. 

You can start with one range of 25 yards, but 
your site should be wide enough to have three 
separate ranges of 25, 50 and 100 yards, the firing- 
line being the same for each range. 

With a real range of this kind instead of simply 
using a backstop of sheet iron, a big backstop called 
a butt, as shown in Fig. 51, is the proper thing to 
take care of beginners who shoot wide of the mark 
and others whose bullets occasionally go wild. A 
butt can be made of i-inch thick lumber and the 
front and back are each 12 feet high and 15 feet 
long, as shown in Fig. 51. 

These are set up and held apart by cleats on 
the top and sides, and the whole frame is then 



About Target Practice 143 

placed in position and fixed there by a pair of 
braces nailed to the back. The space between the 
board is filled with gravel or crushed stone and the 
front should be covered with sheet iron. 




Fig. 51 — Butt for a 25- and 50-yard Rifle Range. 

A butt for a 100-yard range should be 15 feet 
high and 20 feet long, and it won't take very much 
figuring to find out that you will need quite a lot 
of lumber for it. 



144 



Shooting for Boys 



Four bullet catchers should be hung at equally 
spaced distances across the front of the butt; the 
next thing to do is to make a couple of frames 6 
inches wide, inside measurement, and 15 feet long 
of pine strips; the latter should be about ^ inch 




Fig. 52 — A Target Frame. 

thick and 3 inches wide, as shown in Fig. 52. The 
targets are thumb-tacked to the strips and the 
frame can then be suspended in the middle of the 
butt, so that each target is directly over the open- 
ing of a bullet catcher. 

When the scores have been run up the frames 
with the targets on them can be easily carried from 
the butts to the firing point for the shooters to see 
what they have done. 

A small telescope set on a tripod like those used 
for supporting cameras is almost a necessity for a 
range like this so that the hits can be located with- 
out running 50 or* 100 yards every time a shot is 
taken. 

To make a range a howling success the firing- 



About Target Practice 



145 



line ought to be sheltered, for then no matter what 
the weather conditions are the shooters can have 
a warm place for target practice. 

Rifle Practice with Trap-thrown Balls A much 

cheaper way to practice rifle shooting as far as its 
first cost is concerned and to my way of thinking 




Fig- 53 — A Trap for Throwing Clay Balls. 



one that is far more exciting is to shoot at balls 
which are thrown into the air from a trap like the 
one shown in Fig. 53. 

This trap is made by the Chamberlain Cartridge 
and Target Company and costs $3.50, and as far 



146 Shooting for Boys 

as I know it is the only rifle ball trap on the 
market. It is worked by two powerful springs 
(see Fig. 53), and it throws a 1 5^ -inch solid 
ball, or a 2^ -inch hollow ball into the air a distance 
of from 40 to 60 yards at a height of from 10 
to 12 feet at 10 yards from the trap, which is the 
distance and elevation prescribed by the standard 
trap-shooting rules. These balls are made of a 
composition of clay and pitch. 

It is better for a beginner to practice shooting at 
the hollow balls just because they are larger and 
these come packed 500 in a barrel and they cost 
$4.00 per barrel. Later on the solid balls can be 
used, and these cost $9.75 per barrel of 1,500. 
When you can break 10 solid balls out of 10 shots 
with a .22-caliber rifle you are ready to get in with 
the regular fellows and shoot clay pigeons with a 
shotgun. 

Trap-shooting with a Shotgun. — Now that I 
have told you about targets that are fixed, swinging 
and in free flight for rifle shooting, I want you to 
know about trap-shooting with a shotgun. 

To begin with, trap-shooting is the only kind of 
target practice with a shotgun that is worth while 
and it is the finest sport in the world. To do trap- 
shooting you ought to have a space about 70 by 
70 yards; of course you can do a little trap-shoot- 



About Target Practice 147 

ing in a smaller space, but to get the most pleasure 
out of the sport you should have a fairly good- 
sized field, and it follows that the larger the field 
the more powerful traps you can use and the more 
costly they are to buy and to install. 

But you can get a lot of fun and practice out of 
the cheapest and smallest hand trap. The cheapest 
one is made by the Chamberlain Company; it is 

CLfiY PIGEON 




RUBBEHSmO 

Fig. 54 — A Simple Hand Trap. 

called the Ping-pong and costs only $1.50. The 
simplest ones are made by the Marlin Company, 
and these are sold under the names of muzzle- 
loader and breech-loader. 

The latter kind is shown in Fig. 54, and the 
target, which in this case is a clay pigeon — that is, 
a flat disk made of clay and pitch about ^ inch 
thick and 3 inches in diameter — is dropped into 
the trap at the breech. You can throw targets 
with it to a distance of 20 or 80 yards and at a 
rate of 15 or more a minute. 

Another thing about this trap that is good, is 
that it has a shoulder strap made of rubber, and 



148 



Shooting for Boys 



this allows you to throw your targets with your 
right hand while you hold your gun with your left 
hand, and the instant you throw the target you can 
let the trap go and it will not fall to the ground. 
The muzzle-loader is just a plain trap and costs 
$2.25, while the breech-loader costs $3.50. 

The Du Pont Company makes a hand trap (see 
Fig. 55) that works like a gun in that you hold it 




Fig- 55 — A Du Pont Hand Trap that Works Like a Gun. 

in your hands and pull a trigger like a gun, when 
a clay pigeon wings its way through the air, and 
as far as shooting is concerned a clay bird is just 
like a quail, or pheasant, or a duck, but as far as 
eating goes, why, I'd rather have crow, please. 

With these little hand traps you can practice at 
your own time and place. It's truly great sport, so 
get in on it as soon as you can. 

Regulation traps that are intended to be set in 
a pit 16 yards from the firing point, and which are 



About Target Practice 149 

built to throw a clay pigeon not less than 45 yards 
nor more than 55 yards and to a height of between 
6 and 12 feet at a point 10 yards from the trap, 
can be bought for as little as $4.50, while one of 
the same type that will throw the target with 




Fig. 56 — The Expert Trap for Small Ranges. 

a quick change of angles can be had for $6.50. 
These are the Extension and the Expert traps made 
by the Leggett Company. A good trap for a 
small club is shown in Fig. 56. 

A really good trap should throw the target at 
an angle unknown to the shooter to within 45 
degrees of each side of a straight line drawn 



150 



Shooting for Boys 



through No. 3 firing point, as shown at A in Fig. 
57. Where double targets are thrown by a trap 
they should be thrown at an angle within 60 de- 
grees of the straight line drawn through No. 3 
firing point and the trap, as shown at B in Fig. 57. 




Fig. 57, A — A Single Target Field Layout. 

The shaded parts of the diagrams A and B show 
the angles and distances of the various traps. The 
firing points i, 2, 3, 4 and 5 should be separated 
from each other by from 3 to 5 yards ; that is, they 
should be 3 yards apart when the firing points are 
16 yards from the trap and 5 yards when 23 yards 
from the trap. 



About Target Practice 



151 



Unless you have started a club it is not at all 
necessary to have a trap which will throw two 
targets at the same time, or doubles as they are 
called, but if you start a club — well, then things are 
different and you can get whatever you want. 




Fig. 57, B — A Double Target Field Layout. 

The Sub-target Machine Gun. — In recent years, 
but especially during the past year, there has been 
a great deal of interest shown in teaching school- 
boys how to shoot. To make this possible the rifle 
and machine shown in Fig. 58 and which together 
are called a sub-target rifle has been largely used, 
at least in New York City. 



152 Shooting for Boys 

The sub-target rifle does not shoot a bullet, hence 
there is no noise, but both the gun and the target 
are worked by electricity, so that when you aim the 
gun at a little paper target and pull the trigger a 
pointer instantly punches a small hole in the sub- 
target and in this way the exact spot is shown 
where the bullet, had one been used, would have 
struck the real target which you aimed at. 

More than this, every movement of the rifle 
while you are aiming it is traced on the target, and 
any fault which would affect the flight of a bullet, 
had the rifle been loaded with one, can be seen and 
the defect of your aim and pull-off can then be 
corrected. 

Any rifle can be fitted to the sub-target ma- 
chine from a .22-caliber to a U. S. Springfield, and 
it will operate just the same. The weight of the 
rifle is held entirely by the shooter, whether stand- 
ing, kneeling or lying down. The whole thing is 
at once easy, natural and simple to use and it's 
mighty interesting too. 

The sub-target machine rifle can be carried out 
in any schoolroom or other place where a space 20 
feet wide and 35 feet long can be had. It is largely 
used in the Public Schools of New York City at the 
present time, having been installed by the Public 
Schools Athletic League. 



About Target Practice 



153 




Fig. 58— A Sub-Target Machine Gun. 



154 Shooting for Boys 

Rifle Practice in the Armories — Schoolboys who 
belong to the above League and who have shown 
themselves to be good shots with the sub-target 
rifle are allowed to practice real rifle shooting at 
the ranges of the various armories throughout the 
city, and it is my best wish that this fine work and 
spirit of good will toward the boys, in and out of 
school, will be extended to all the other cities in the 
United States. 



I 



CHAPTER X 
HOW TO START A SHOOTING CLUB 

4 S you have gathered from the last chapter, to 
rA get the most practice and the best sport out 
of rifle shooting you need a rather elabo- 
rate outfit. 

This in the very nature of things costs money 
and more than the average boy can usually afford 
to spend. But don't let a little thing like this 
discourage you, for there are probably a hundred 
boys in every town of 10,000 inhabitants who 
would gladly join you in starting and keeping up a 
shooting club, and what's more there are many 
men who will freely contribute whether you let 
them join or not. 

In the Very Beginning — The real trouble is to 
find out who these boys and men are. As good a 
way as any is to tell your friends that you intend 
to start a rifle club and get as many fellows to come 
in with you as you can, and together you can name 
a place and fix a date for a powwow to be held and 
set it a couple of weeks ahead. 

It is easy enough to get a place, and while you 
155 



156 Shooting for Boys 

can hold it at your own home, or the home of a 
friend, you can nearly always get the use of a room 
at a school, or at the Y. M. C. A., or at a church. 

Now for Some Publicity. — Your next move is to 
go to the editors of your town papers and ask them 
to give you a write-up in their next issue. While 
the main purpose of this bit of publicity is to let 
the boys know that you are going to start a rifle 
club, it lets their folks know at the same time 
that your club will keep the boys off the street, 
give them a chance to improve their spare mo- 
ments and at the same time to indulge in a manly 
sport. 

The editors will gladly run in reading notices, as 
it is their business to publish items of general in- 
terest, for of such are their papers made. Now, 
instead of merely asking them to write it up and so 
get only a paragraph or two the better way is to 
write the notices yourself and hand in something 
like this: 

BOYS TO HAVE THEIR OWN RIFLE 
CLUB 

Why Not Join and Learn to Be a Crack Shot? 

Other towns have their boys' rifle clubs, 

but up to the present time Sportstown has 



How to Start a Shooting Club 157 

been a back number in this clean and healthy 
sport. 

Better to be late than never, and our town 
will now have ranges where you can practice 
all the year around, and not only this but 
matches will be held and prizes given. 

The first meeting to start the Sportstown 
Boys' RiHe Club will be held at the home of 
Mr. William Stock on May 22 at 8 o'clock. 
Everybody is invited, grown-ups as well as 
boys, and be sure to go and have your say 
whether you are interested in shooting or not. 

As soon as the club is organized beginners 
will be taught to shoot by the best shots in 
Sportstown in a safe and sane way. Another 
purpose of the club is to promote social life 
among the boys. 

The club will be conducted upon the small 
profits made from the sale of ammunition to 
its members. .22-caliber rifles will be fur- 
nished by the club to its members free and 
the ammunition will be sold to the members 
for 25 cents per box of 50 cartridges. 

Two or three other write-ups of the same kind 
will help the good work along. These articles 
which you send in to the editors should be type- 



158 Shooting for Boys 

written on 8x 10^ paper and on one side only, 
and it is better to write each one up a little dif- 
ferently if you can. 

Another good scheme is to print some notices on 
8x10 cards announcing the time and the place 
the meeting is to be held and post these up in the 
windows of the hardware stores and gunsmith 
shops — with the permission of the owners, of 
course. They will be more than willing to help 
you, for it means money in their cash registers 
eventually. 

Starting Your Club — After taking these first 
steps have three or four of your good friends with 
you on the evening of the meeting and as the pro- 
moter and organizer of the club you should be 
the speaker, and you must be prepared to answer 
all kinds of questions, wise and otherwise. 

When your audience is comfortably seated you 
can open your little speech by stating the aims and 
purposes of the rifle club. You should have in 
mind two or three places that could be used for 
a club, what a dozen rifles would cost, and about 
other things having to do with the club. Explain 
too that in order to start the club and to keep it 
going until it is self-supporting a small initiation 
fee will have to be charged. 

At this point it is well to have one of your boon 



How to Start a Shooting Club 159 

companions suggest that every one present, men, 
women and boys — the girls don't count — ^pledge 
him- or herself to give $2.50, which represents a 
year's dues, for some boy and that each member 
pledge himself to get one other member. 

After the names of the contributors and mem- 
bers have been taken you can announce that a fur- 
ther meeting will be held, naming the time and 
place, when the club will be organized, officers will 
be elected and a range picked out. You can then 
adjourn. 

If it is hard for you to give a short offhand 
talk write out exactly what you want to say and 
read it, which will do just as well. Another thing, 
be sure that a reporter from each one of the papers 
is present, and always send the editors notice of 
each meeting to be held, with a request that a re- 
porter be sent around. 

This will greatly help the popularity of your 
club along, and when it comes to your shooting con- 
tests he will give ample space to them. This kind 
of publicity will make the club a matter of public 
interest and town pride, especially if you have 
some really crack shots in it. 

Rules for Organizing the Club. — At your next 
meeting you can go ahead and organize the Club 
according to the following rules : 



i6o Shooting for Boys 

1. The Club shall be called the Sportstown Rifle 
Club. 

2. The Club shall be managed by a President, 
Vice-Presidents and a Committee of eleven (five to 
form a quorum) elected by ballot at the Annual 
General Meeting each year. 

3. The Officers shall consist of President, Treas- 
urer, Secretary and Auditors, who shall be ex- 
ofdcio members of the Committee and shall be 
elected annually at the Annual General Meeting 
each year. .^ 

4. Vacancies in the Committee, or Officers, oc- 
curring during the year may be filled by the Com- 
mittee. 

5. The property of the Club shall be vested in 
the Committee for the time being. 

6. Application for membership shall be made in 
writing to the Secretary, Officers or Members of 
the Committee, stating the candidate's name and 
address and expressing his willingness to abide by 
the rules, and shall be accompanied by the first sub- 
scription. The candidate shall thereupon be en- 
rolled a member. 

7. Any member 14 days in arrears with his dues 
may be debarred from the privileges of Member- 
ship and after notice sent by post to his address his 



How to Start a Shooting Club i6i 

name may be removed from the Roll of Members 
by the Committee. 

8. The Committee may remove from the Roll of 
Members any member whose conduct on the range 
or upon any premises occupied by the Club, or else- 
where, is unseemly, objectionable or calculated to 
bring the Club into disrepute. 

9. The Secretary or any Officer or member re- 
ceiving any money on behalf of the Club shall 
forthwith hand the same to the Treasurer. 

10. The Secretary shall have charge of all books, 
papers, accounts and documents of the Club. He 
shall duly record the proceedings of the Committee 
and at the General Meetings in the Minute Book; 
and he shall also conduct the correspondence and 
prepare the statement of accounts. 

11. The Annual General Meeting shall be held 
as soon after the close of the financial year as pos- 
sible at which time the following business shall be 
transacted : Election of President, Vice-President, 
Officers and Committee, receiving the Balance 
Sheet and Report of the Committee, revise and 
amend the Rules and By-laws. Not less than seven 
days' notice shall be given to convene a meeting. 

12. Upon a requisition in writing duly setting 
out the purposes, signed by twenty members and 
delivered by post to the Secretary, the Committee 



1 62 Shooting for Boys 

shall, within 21 days, convene a meeting of the 
Club. 

13. Upon such requisition being duly served and 
not complied with within six weeks, the requisition- 
ers may themselves convene a meeting by giving 
seven days' notice in writing to the members, duly 
setting out the purposes for which such meeting 
is called and any resolutions passed at such meet- 
ing duly convened shall have the same force and 
effect as if they were passed at a meeting convened 
by the Committee. 

14. Any officer or member of the Committee 
may be removed by a majority of two-thirds of the 
members present at any General Meeting duly 
convened under Rules 11, 12 and 13, and such vote 
may be taken by ballot. 

15. The Committee may : 

(a) Make or alter if necessary by- 
laws and regulations in regard to the 
use of the range, shooting, handicap- 
ping, matches, rifles and ammunition. 

(b) Sell or otherwise dispose of the 
property of the Club. 

(c) May pay accounts and incur Ha- 
bilities on behalf of the Club. 

(d) May institute and defend legal 
proceedings on behalf of the Club, 



How to Start a Shooting Club 163 

(e) and may add to its numbers by co- 
option to the number of not more than 
three. 

16. Any by-laws and regulations made by the 
Committee under Rule 15 shall be published by 
being exhibited on the Notice Board of the Club, 
and shall thereafter have all the force and effect of 
these rules, but shall be submitted for confirmation 
at the next Annual General Meeting. 

17. The Auditors shall examine the accounts at 
least once annually with the invoices and vouchers, 
prior to the Annual General Meeting, and shall 
append thereto a certificate to the effect that 
the same are correct and fairly represent the 
expenditures and receipts of the Club and its 
assets and liabilities, and they may at any time in- 
spect any book, document, or property of the Club 
in the possession of any officer or member, and they 
shall make a report thereon in writing to the Com- 
mittee. 

18. The Committee and officers are hereby in- 
demnified by the Club against any claim or demand 
in respect of any liability properly and bona fide 
incurred on behalf of the Club. 

19. The Vice-Presidents and Auditors may, if 
they think proper, attend Committee meetings but 
may not vote. 



164 Shooting for Boys 

20. The financial year of the Club shall termi- 
nate on December 31st of each year. 

Some Ways to Raise Money. — In every town 
there are fine, public-spirited moneyed men, and 
when you have your club organized you need not 
hesitate to go to them, explain what you have done 
and all about your club and ask them for con- 
tributions and any man if he has a drop of shoot- 
ing blood in his arteries will gladly chip in and help 
the good work along. 

Another and perhaps a higher-toned way to 
raise money is to do like the men's shooting clubs 
do, and that is to sell bonds. As a boy this may 
seem a little over your head, but if you want to 
finance your club in this way any business man or 
any lawyer — the former always preferred — will see 
you through it to the end that everything is done in 
a strictly businesslike manner. 

The bonds should have a value of $5.00 each 
and carry interest at 5 per cent and as this gives 
you something to sell instead of asking for some- 
thing for nothing, you ought to have no trouble in 
raising money on them. After the club is going 
strong it can buy back the bonds and pay the 
interest on them. These bonds should read after 
this fashion: 



How to Start a Shooting Club 165 



Five Dollars Number 58 

BOND OF 
THE SPORTSTOWN RIFLE CLUB 

For value received the Sportstonvn Rifle Club promises 
to pay to the holder of this bond the sum of Five 
Dollars at the expiration of three years or before if it 
deems advisable and to pay 5^ interest thereon annu- 
ally on the first of January until the bond is redeemed. 

William Stock, 

President 

Henry Bullet, 

Secretary 
January 5, 1917 



Of course these bonds must not be issued until 
the officers of the club are elected and it is fully 
organized. The bonds look more businesslike if 
they are printed, but they will be just as good from 
an investment point of view if they are typewritten. 

Getting the Club's Equipment. — By the time you 
have organized your club and sold its bonds there 
will be money a-plenty in the treasury to do things 
with. The first thing to do is to rent or otherwise 
get a suitable range and to buy a dozen or more 
.22-caliber single-shot rifles of some good standard 



i66 Shooting for Boys 

make; also get a dozen small telescopes of the 
single-draw kind for shooters to spot their hits 
with, and these should be supported on camera 
tripods or other stands. The guns are loaned to 
members who haven't their own but the telescopes 
are let out at 5 cents a day each just to help along 
the income of the club. 

The butts should be built as described in the last 
chapter, though if there are no houses or roads 
near by they can be made much cheaper. The 
firing-line is then marked off and the club is ready 
for business. In summer a shelter is not needed, 
but by all means have the firing-line closed in and 
heated for the winter months, or I fear me your 
club will go up the flue. 

When buying cartridges for the club buy them in 
large enough quantities so that you can get them 
as cheaply as possible and any of the big firms that 
make cartridges will quote you a very low price if 
you will tell them that they are for your club. 

To help keep track of the cartridges as well as 
for the convenience they afford to members at the 
firing-line get twelve blocks of wood i inch thick, 
3 inches wide and 5 inches long, bore 10 holes in 
each block and have each hole just large enough so 
that a .22-caliber cartridge will fit into it as shown 
in Fig. 59. 



How to Start a Shooting Club 167 

Elbow mats and mats for firing from the kneel- 
ing and prone position should also be provided if 
the club's funds will permit. 

A general utility boy to take care of the am- 
munition, change the targets and do the hundred 
and one other little things that need doing around a 
range can be hired, but if money is an object let 




Fig- 59 — Automatic Cartridge Counter. 

each member take his turn and then you will be 
sure of getting good service. 

How to Encourage New Members. — Crack shots 
don't need encouragement, but many beginners do. 
You should, as an officer of the club, see to it that 
they are treated right by the fellows who know how 
to shoot and a little supervision will make both of 
them enjoy the work. 

As you will remember, targets are numbered 
from I to 10 including the bullseye. In ten shots 
the highest possible score would be ten shots placed 
in the bullseye, or a score of 100, Now, since 



1 68 Shooting for Boys 

all the club's members cannot by any chance have 
the same degree of skill no matter how much they 
practice you must see to it that when they com- 
pete with each other something like an equal foot- 
ing prevails or else the interest will peter out. 

The System of Handicapping. — The best way 
to keep up the interest is by what is called handi- 
capping and which works out like this : Suppose 
that Harry Hammer can only score 80 at his best, 
while Charlie Trigger usually scores 97 or there- 
abouts. 

Now, in order to fix up matters so that they can 
shoot as though they were equally matched you 
must give Hammer a handicap. As he only scores 
80 out of a 100 it must be clear that 20 per cent of 
his shooting is bad and for this reason he is given 
20 points in a ten-shot competition while Trigger, 
who is only 3 per cent off, is given a 3-point handi- 
cap. 

The handicaps of all the members should be 
posted on the bulletin board of the club and as fast 
as each member improves he should be advanced 
and allowed to shoot with shooters having a less 
handicap. In this way all of the shooters are 
evenly matched, theoretically, and the poor shot 
will have no cause to get sour and so lose interest. 
Also a record should be kept of e^ch member's 



How to Start a Shooting Club 169 

scores, in order that his handicap can be properly 
fixed. 

Prize Shooting Contests — To further excite the 
interest of the members weekly contests should be 
held when small prizes are given to the winners. 
Contests are worked along this line : Four prizes, 
say, are given and the entrance fee, which is 10 
cents per competition, covers the cost of them. 
Thus if there are twenty entries the first. prize will 
be of the value of $1.00, the second 50 cents, the 
third 30 cents and the fourth 20 cents. 

Each winner may either receive a small memento 
for the prize he won or he may take a voucher and 
when he presents a number of them at the end of 
the year he can get a larger and a more worth while 
prize, or, finally, he may take it out in ammunition. 

Championship Contests. — Once a year your club 
should hold a championship contest in which the 
twelve highest winners of the weekly handicaps 
compete and the public should be invited to attend 
these meets. 

There are two ways to provide for the medals, 
watch-fobs, stick-pins or whatever the prizes are to 
be. The first is to make the members pay an en- 
trance fee of $1.50 to cover the cost of one gold, 
one silver, and two or three bronze trophies. The 
second way is to have the merchants of your town 



lyo Shooting for Boys 

donate the prizes, but never ask for donations of 
any kind unless the funds of the treasury are very 
low. For Shooting Rules and Regulations see 
Chapter XII. 

How to Start a Trap-Shooting Club — To start 
a trap-shooting club is less trouble than to organize 
a rifle club, although its membership is bound to be 
less. 

The club should be organized along the same 
lines as a rifle club, but instead of $5.00 bonds you 
may have $2.50, as these are easier to sell, and the 
annual dues need be only $1.00. 

A trap-shooting club is not expected to furnish 
guns to its members, expensive butts are not 
required, and a covered firing point is out of the 
question. For these reasons the dues are very 
small. 

On the other hand, shotguns cost more than 
rifles, and the ammunition is more expensive, but 
the latter is supplied to the trap-shooting club mem- 
bers just as it is to the members of a rifle club, for 
on this the club makes its running expenses. 

A good scheme, though, is to build some kind of 
a shelter where the shooters can come in in cold 
weather and warm themselves and get a bite to eat 
and some hot coffee to drink, for shooting in the 
open makes a fellow hungry and eating makes him 



How to Start a Shooting Club 171 

thirsty, and both of these habits when satisfied 
make him want to go out and shoot again. 

The first money taken in from dues and the sale 
of bonds furnishes the funds for buying traps, 
targets and ammunition and the lunch counter if 
you have one, and each member pays for his am- 
munition, targets and eats at a slightly higher rate 
than the club pays for them. 

The business of the club and handicap matches 
are conducted along the same general lines as that 
of a rifle club. About the only thing that is dif- 
ferent is the shooting rules, and a word about these 
will be found in Chapter XII. These rules will also 
give you a pretty good idea of laying out the 
grounds. 



CHAPTER XI 
WHY EVERY BOY SHOULD SHOOT 

A S a boy among boys you very likely know that 
r\ many parents most strenuously object to a 
fellow learning to shoot. 

If you take as naturally to shooting as a duck 
takes to water, or if you have watched other boys 
hit the bullseye, or a clay bird soaring through the 
air, and you want to share fifty-fifty in the fun, 
you probably won't be able to understand why your 
father, or your mother, or both, are so dead set 
against your having a gun. 

Now, my purpose in writing this chapter is to 
make you see what shooting means from their 
point of view, and to try to make your folks see 
what ijt means to you as you and I see it. 

Shooting as Some Folks See It. — In the first 
place, most men and women are afraid of a gun. 
To them a gun means only a deadly weapon which 
if it does not kill the person who handles it, or some 
one else, will of a surety maim them for life, 
and hence it is easy to see why they wouldn't think 

172 



Why Every Boy Should Shoot 173 

of having a firearm about the house, much less of 
letting the boy have one of his own to play with. 

Next to the fear of what might happen should a 
gun fall into the hands of a boy many persons be- 
lieve — and I am one of them — that no living bird 
or beast, if it is harmless and not needed for food, 
should be killed. As many boys who live in small 
towns go around peppering the birds and cats and 
other living things on wing and foot, to say noth- 
ing of insulators on telegraph poles and weather- 
cocks on barns, the idea of a boy having a gun is 
in consequence very often tabooed. 

Again, at this time many parents see a deeper 
and graver meaning in letting the boy use a gun, 
for they are not at all in favor of preparedness, 
which means that every boy and every man in this 
country should be given a military training the 
chief feature of which is to know how to shoot 
straight. And according to their code men should 
not shoot down their fellow-men, and they think 
right. 

The proper way, they hold, is for nations to settle 
their differences not by war but by arbitration — 
that is, by having persons whom they select to meet 
and discuss the points at issue and so settle the 
dispute peaceably; and with this lofty ideal I am 
al30 in sympathy. It 13 cfear that parents who are 



174 Shooting for Boys 

opposed to preparedness are not apt to let the boy 
have a gun if they can help it. 

Shooting as the Boy Sees It. — As a boy you look 
at shooting in quite another light. You can't just 
understand how it is that the boy next door to you 
can handle a gun and not do any damage with it 
and yet you are not allowed to have one. It isn't 
fair. 

Of course you know just as well as your father 
and mother that if the blamed thing did go off of 
its own accord it would be apt to hurt somebody or 
other, or that if you pointed a gun that wasn't 
loaded at some one and for the fun of it just pulled 
the trigger it would mean almost certain death. 

But you are as careful a boy as they make 'em 
and besides you've got too much sense to do any- 
thing foolish with a gun, and while some folks 
may not believe you after what I've said about 
Gun Safety First over there in the middle of the 
book I'd take you at your word and give you a try- 
out anyway. The result is that you think your 
folks are old fogies who have forgotten they were 
ever kids; but this isn't the kind of a spirit a boy 
of your caliber should show toward those who love 
you simply because they don't understand you, or, 
better say, because you don't know what they are 
thinking of down deep in their hearts, 



Why Every Boy Should Shoot 175 

And you are mum on the subject of birds and 
cats and things, for the reason that you haven't 
even thought of them yourself — you must have 
something in your hands that you can pump a piece 
of lead for 50 or 100 yards with first and a bird 
on a telegraph wire or a cat on a high back fence 
before the idea of its possibilities strike you; now, 
if you are a little more savage than civilized, 
why, you will simply blaze away, that's all, and 
all you're sorry about is that all the bears and 
Indians had been killed off before you arrived in 
the country. 

As to this preparedness thing the papers are 
filled with, you don't care a hang about it one way 
or the other — all you want is to get a gun in your 
hands and have the sport of shooting it. And the 
question is how to get a rifle if there is opposition in 
your family, or how to get it the quickest way if 
there isn't any opposition. 

This is about the situation as it stands now be- 
tween parents who do not want the boy to shoot 
and the boy who wants to shoot whether they'll let 
him or no. 

My Idea of Shooting. — I have seen a Pima In- 
dian put a bow and arrow into a baby boy's hands 
who was not more than three years old and, with a 
patience born of having nothing else to do, teach 



176 Shooting for Boys 

the little redskin how to draw the bow, aim the 
arrow and shoot. 

And I have seen the men folks of the white 
race, both backwoodsmen and city dwellers, put a 
gun into the hands of a boy scarcely large enough 
to hold it and show him how to shoot, tell him what 
he could do and what he must not do with it and I 
have had occasion to observe that the man and his 
boy in such cases became the closest kind of pals, 
for the father had confidence in his son obeying his 
instructions, and sensing this confidence the son did 
his level best to do exactly as he was told. 

Where such happy conditions exist I can render 
no useful service, but as I have said before I am 
writing this book for the boy who has no older head 
to guide him, and if you are that boy and can get 
a gun I want you to do just as I have told you all 
along from the first to the last chapter, for I am 
your friend and I believe in you. 

Now, don't ever lose sight of the fact that a gun 
is dangerous if it is not handled rightly, and that, 
it is quite safe if you know how to use it. In this 
respect it is like lots of other things that we make 
use of in our daily lives and think nothing about. 

Take matches, for instance. Dangerous? No 
small-bore arm has ever been made that could com- 
pete with a match as a real source of danger. A 



Why Every Boy Should Shoot 177 

lighted match carelessly thrown away before it was 
put out has burned down many a house and burned 
up lots of people, but grown-up folks do not say to 
a boy of twelve, '' Don't ever take a match, much 
less light one." 

How is it, you may wonder, if matches are as 
dangerous as guns that people are not afraid of 
them? And the answer is because they are ac- 
quainted with them and they know by long experi- 
ence that if they use them in a certain way they are 
safe enough. So in every home you will find 
enough safety matches to set the whole town on 
fire. 

Since it is possible to teach a boy how to use a 
match safely, why not also teach him, or let him 
be taught, how to use a gun safely ? We are always* 
afraid of that which we know nothing about, and 
while it is just as well that this is so as long as we 
won't learn, the best way to get rid of fear is to 
learn all about the thing we are afraid of. 

The reason a boy shoots at objects he should not 
shoot at is because he is not provided with the 
right kind of targets. Give him a fixed target at 
25 yards with a bullseye i inch in diameter and 
a bell back of it so that it will ring out when he 
hits it and he won't care much about a tomcat over 
yonder that looms up as big as a barn door. 



178 Shooting for Boys 

Or better, give him a hand trap that will throw 
a clay pigeon through the air so swiftly that it will 
make a wild duck look sick and he will have but 
little temptation to take a pot shot at the first ob- 
ject that comes into sight. Best of all let him 
belong to a rifle or trap-shooting club where com- 
petitions are held and loose shooting will make no 
appeal to him. 

As to preparedness, my idea is this : At the pres- 
ent time we are all of us living in a transition 
period of the world's history and as a result we 
have a civilization that seems to be all right, at 
least the crust is nice and brown ; but all you have 
to do is to cut off a slice and you will find the 
inside of it only dough — half-baked — and this ac- 
counts for the wide differences between those who 
cry for war and others who want peace at any 
price. 

Before the great European conflict the nations 
vied with each other if not in culture then in boast- 
ing as to which one had the most culture. Art, 
science and philosophy had reached the highest pin- 
nacle yet attained in the world's history, and al- 
though all of the nations had men resting on their 
arms, to the ordinary person at least it seemed that 
in virtue of a civilization as far advanced as ours, 
and when it was to the advantage of every coun- 



Why Every Boy Should Shoot 179 

try to be on friendly terms with every other coun- 
try, that war on a large scale was simply out of the 
question. 

But in a night war came and, strangely enough, 
by the very advancement in knowledge that made a 
high state of refinement and progress possible it 
also provided the means for staging the most stu- 
pendous, barbaric war that has ever been waged. 
Gigantic guns, huge automobiles, the submarine, 
the flying machine and hundreds of lesser devices 
have been called into service, but as effective as 
they are, the man with the small-bore gun is just 
as important to his country as he was in any war 
ever fought in the past. 

Germany's early successes were due to the fact 
that she was prepared and because of the laxity of 
preparedness on the part of the Allies; and these 
two factors are accountable for the latter's early 
defeats. In the two years that the war has been 
going on the Allies have prepared and they are 
winning now since their resources are greater, and 
this gives them the balance of power. 

The effect of being prepared and the lack of it 
has made a deep impression on the people of the 
United States, and hence the discussions in the 
newspapers pro and con as to the value of military 
instruction in schools. Some educators are in 



i8o Shooting for Boys 

favor of it and others are just as strongly opposed 
to it, but this much is certain — if you are going to 
have a country you must be prepared to stand up 
for your country. 

In this respect countries are just like boys. Just 
as soon as other boys find that you will not fight 
for your rights there will be one or more among 
them that will commence to bullyrag you, but once 
show them that you have the courage to fight, 
especially if you have the punch to back it up with, 
and you will never be molested again except for 
cause. 

And this is just as true of your country. If a 
country is to remain a country she must be prepared 
to defend her rights; and not only to fight for them 
but to fight hard. If the colonists had not been 
courageous enough to fight for what they knew 
was right and had they not, each and every one of 
them, been sharpshooters, this great land of the 
free and home of the brave would still be paying 
taxes on tea as well as on several other things to 
Great Britain. And for these reasons and some 
that I have not mentioned we must have war if 
needs be. 

That war is all wrong everybody with a grain 
of intelligence will admit, but this is not the fault 
of civilization but because civilization is hardly out 



Why Every Boy Should Shoot i8i 

of its short pants, and so every now and then it 
reverts back into savagery. This being the case, 
the only thing to do is to meet conditions as we find 
them. 

However much you may hate war and preach 
against it from your steam-heated, electric-Hghted 
and velvet-carpeted library if you were suddenly 
set back in time when you were a cave-boy again, 
you wouldn't care much about the ethics of pre- 
paredness but what you would do is to grasp a club 
— or a .44-caliber repeating rifle would be better — 
and sally forth to do battle with the wild beasts 
and wilder men in the effort to get some food and 
save your life. 

And you have to do the same thing now even as 
you did away back there when the human race was 
young and you and I had left our tree homes and 
went to live in cave homes, for it is just as much a 
matter of self-preservation and the survival of the 
fittest today as it was then, only we are not put up 
against it so often and this makes it seem all the 
harder when it comes. The code of civilization 
says, " Thou shalt not fight,'* but the code of 
Nature says, " Thou must fight for thy rights," 
and Nature is older than civilization. 

That fighting is foolish in our age is patent to 
every thinking person and it seems doubly so to the 



1 82 Shooting for Boys 

onlooker, especially if he is of a peaceful turn of 
mind and is a writer safely tucked away in some 
sleeping little village like myself, and the fight is on 
in far-off Europe. But if he caught some sneaking 
thief taking his chickens from the roost would he 
say, " Brother, these fowls are just as much yours 
as they are mine, so help yourself ! " and go quietly 
back to bed? Rather the chances are that, how- 
ever much he loved peace and his fellow-man, if 
he had a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun loaded 
with No. 8 shot he'd let go and say something else. 

This great United States is your country and 
you love it because it is your country. And the 
reason it is yours is because the boys of '76 and 
again the Northern boys of '61 fought for it 
and I can't see how any one could have the un- 
adulterated nerve to call it his country just because 
he was born here if he wouldn't fight for it and die 
for it if needs be. 

Yes, if you are going to have a country you must 
be prepared to fight for it to the last trench and the 
best way to be prepared is to learn how to shoot 
and to shoot straight, and then should a real call 
ever come when your country needs you, as it 
came* to the boys of France and England, you can 
shoulder arms like a veteran, salute the flag and say, 
'' I am prepared." 



Why Every Boy Should Shoot 183 

Military Training in Schools — To learn to shoot 
is only one part of a boy's military training. Many 
writers believe that every boy of twelve years of 
age and over should be given military training, that 
is, he should be trained not only to shoot but to 
drill in the manual of arms and to be disciplined to 
stand the hardship of the trenches. 

My opinion is that military training in schools is 
not at all needed, and to many boys it is extremely 
distasteful. If the schools provide the sports of to- 
day, such as football, baseball and gymnastics, to 
develop the muscles of the boy and his powers of 
endurance he will be as well fitted for actual service 
in the field as any course of military training in a 
secondary school can give him. 

Let the boy's exercise be of the sort that boys 
like, and do not try to force him to do a man's 
work while he is yet a boy. Let him learn to shoot 
as a matter of sport and let him enjoy life to the 
fullest while he is a boy, and then should a crisis 
appear in which his country's honor and existence 
are at stake, he will be on the firing-line and he 
will serve his country well. 

Preparedness in Public Schools A fine ex- 
ample of preparing the boy for his own mental and 
physical welfare, and at the same time preparing 
him to defend his country should he ever be called 



184 Shooting for Boys 

on to do so, is the work that is now being carried 
on by the PubHc Schools Athletic League of the 
City of New York under the direction of its Secre- 
tary, Dr. C. Ward Crampton. 

The chief purpose of the League is to look after 
the bodily welfare of the boy and to build him up 
so that he is healthy and strong and fit, and experi- 
ence has shown that this can be done to the best 
advantage by means of competitive games. 

Calisthenics — that is, light gymnastic exercises 
of an improved kind — are used to develop the boy's 
mental activities and these are further sharpened 
by teaching him to shoot with a sub-target ma- 
chine. When the boy has shown himself to be a 
good shot he can then use the rifle ranges in the 
armories, where General Wood of the U. S. Army 
has assigned sergeant instructors to meet the 
schoolboy squads and to give them instruction in 
real rifle shooting. 

Every school, where it is practicable, should take 
up the matter of training boys along the lines in- 
dicated above, both for the good it will do the boy 
and the possible good it may do the country. 



CHAPTER XII 

USEFUL INFORMATION 

Shooting Rules for Rifle Clubs Special By- 

laws: I. Members must submit to the orders and 
directions of the Range Officer on duty. 

2. All ammunition used on the Club Range must 
be bought from the Club. 

3. Members may only shoot at the target which 
the Range Officer on duty has previously allotted to 
them. 

4. Subject to target being available the Range 
Officer may allow to each member two targets at 
one time, of which one may be used for sighting 
shots and the other for record. 

5. No member may occupy a place on the firing 
point for more than 15 minutes when others are 
waiting. 

6. No member may go in front of the firing 
point on any pretense whatever. 

7. On the words " Cease fire! '* members must 
unload their rifles and lay them on the firing point 
and leave them there until the word " Fir el " 

185 



1 86 Shooting for Boys 

8. No member may load a rifle anywhere but 
on the firing point. 

9. No member may point a loaded or an un- 
loaded rifle anywhere but on the firing point and in 
any direction other than the butts. Suspension and 
a fine of $1.00 is the penalty for the first offense 
and dismissal from the Club for the second offense. 

10. No member may fire at any longer distance 
until he can place all of his shots on the target 
at the next shorter distance. 

11. No firearm using other than .22 ammunition 
may be used on the Range. 

12. Competitors must load from a wood block 
holding 10 cartridges. 

Competitions. — 13. Except where otherwise 
specified in the conditions all competitors are on a 
handicap footing. 

14. In all unlimited entry competitions all handi- 
caps are reduced 50 per cent. 

15. No target will be counted for any com- 
petition unless, prior to shooting, a competition 
ticket has been purchased and handed to the Range 
Oflicer. 

16. Members must use Club rifles in turn, and 
when others are waiting no member may retain a 
Club rifle for more than 15 minutes. 

17. Any member negligently or willfully dam- 



Useful Information 187 

aging any rifle, telescope or other property of the 
Club shall have to make good the damage. 

Rifles and Ammunition. — 18. Any single-load- 
ing or repeating rifle not larger than .22 caliber, 
with any sight not containing glass which may be 
attached to any part of the rifle and with trigger 
pull of not more than 3 pounds may be used. 

19. The Range Officer may disallow the use of 
any rifle which in his opinion is defective or likely 
to prove dangerous. 

20. Any ammunition not larger in caliber nor 
greater in muzzle energy than that of the .22 rim- 
fire long rifle cartridge may be used. 

21. A sling strap may be used. 

Position. — 22. Except when otherwise specified 
in the conditions of the competition shooting may 
be in any position, standing, kneeling, sitting, prone 
or back position at the option of the members, pro- 
vided, however, that the forearm supporting the 
rifle shall be free from any support from elbow to 
rifle, and that no artificial rest for the rifle of any 
kind be permitted. 

Targets. — 22,. Targets may be of three kinds 
and these are (a) bullseye, 25 yards, 50 yards and 
100 yards (see Appendix B) ; (&) man target (see 
Appendix B), and (c) clay disks 2 inches in di- 
ameter. 



i88 Shooting for Boys 

Shooting. — 24. Shooting at bullseye targets will 
be a string of 10 shots with a time-limit of 10 min- 
utes. 

25. Shooting at man targets will be in strings 
of 10 shots with a time-limit of 2 minutes from 
the word " Fire! " Scoring will be the same as for 
bullseye targets. 

26. A team shooting at the man targets will 
be at 50 yards by teams of 4 to 6 men for 
one minute from the word ''Fire!'', during 
which the shooter may fire as many shots as he 
is able. 

27. Shooting at clay disk targets will be by a 
team of 4 or 5 at 100 yards. Two sets of 5 or more 
disks will be placed on the butt with not less than 
I foot of space between each disk and 6 feet be- 
tween each set of disks and two teams will lie down 
together. Shooting will be opened on the word 
"Fire!'' and kept up until one team has broken 
all its disks. The team which does this first is the 
winner. 

Scoring. — 28. The value of a hit will be deter- 
mined by the edge of the shot hole nearest to the 
center of the target. 

29. If a shot hole is not clearly defined its value 
may be determined by the use of a plug gauge .22 
inch in diameter. 



Useful Information 189 

30. When a target has more hits than the speci- 
fied number of shots in the competition hits its 
excess shall be deducted from those of the highest 
value, but 

31. When a target has less than the specified 
number the competitor shall be deemed to have 
missed. 

32. Scores shall be counted and recorded by a 
Range Officer appointed for that purpose and any 
score may be challenged upon payment of 25 cents, 
which will be returned if the challenge is upheld. 
All challenges will be decided by the Committee, 
whose decisions are final. 

33. Under no circumstances may a competitor 
touch his own or the target of another competitor 
until the score has been recorded. No challenge is 
permitted in respect of a target which has been 
so touched, and the penalty for breach of this rule 
is the disallowance of the entire score on the target 
touched. 

Ties. — 34. In individual competitions for prizes 
in kind and in any competitions specified by the 
Committee, ties will be decided by refiring the 
specified string at the longest range included in the 
competition with such time-limit or proposition 
thereof as was required by the conditions of the 
competition. 



190 Shooting for Boys 

Subject to this rule ties will be decided as fol- 
lows: 

35. In individual and team competition for 
prizes : 

(a) If at more than one distance by the high- 
est score at the longest distance; (b) if still a 
tie by the fewest hits of the lowest value, and 
(c) if still a tie by shooting off at the longest 
distance. 

In handicap competitions subject to Rule 35 ties 
will be decided in favor of the competitor receiving 
the smallest handicap and if still a tie by the ap- 
plication of Rule 34. 

Hitting the Wrong Target. — 36. A competitor 
hitting the wrong target shall lose the hit. 

37. Any competitor deliberately firing at another 
competitor's target shall be disqualified and further 
subject to such penalties, including dismissal from 
the Club, as the Committee may decide. 

Misconduct. — 38. Any member guilty of any 
dangerous, dishonest or discreditable conduct may 
be at once suspended from all the rights and 
privileges of the Club by the Range Ofificer and will 
be further subject to such penalties including 
dismissal from the Club, as the Committee may 
decide. 

Spotting. — 39. In individual competitions at 



Useful Information 191 

bullseye targets the competitors may use a tele- 
scope. 

40. In individual competitions at man targets 
spotting is not allowed. 

41. In team competitions one spotter, or coach, 
per team, who may use a telescope, is allowed. 

Defective Rifles and Ammunition. — 42. In cases 
of defective cartridges where the bullet does not 
leave the barrel another cartridge may, with the 
permission of the Range Officer, be used, but no 
other defect will be recognized. 

43. In competitions with a time-limit no extra 
time will be allowed in case of misfires, but the 
competitor may fire another shot if he is able to 
within the time. 

44. Should a rifle break, jam or otherwise be- 
come defective, the Range Officer may permit the 
competitor to shoot with another rifle, but no extra 
time will be allowed. 

Dimensions of Man Targets. — A man target is a 
flat surface cut out to represent the head and shoul- 
ders of a man but so reduced in size that it appears 
to be a man at a distance of 500 yards away. 

Dimensions of Bullseye Targets. — For the above 
contests bullseye targets will be printed on white 
cardboard with scoring rings of the following di- 
mensions : 



192 



Shooting for Boys 



Scoring: 
Points 


25 yds. 


so yds. 


loo yds. 




diameter 


diameter 


diameter 


10 


0.5 inch. 


I inch. 


2 inch. 


9 


I 


2 " 


4 " 


8 


1.5 " 


3 " 


6 " 


7 


2 " 


4 " 


8 " 


6 


2.5 " 


5 " 


10 " 


5 


3 


6 " 


12 " 


4 


3-5 '' 


7 " 


14 " 


3 


4 " 


8 " 


i6 " 


2 


4-5 " 


9 " 


i8 " 


I 


5 " 


10 " 


20 " 



Remarks 



Colored black 
form buUseye. 



to 



Note 

1 Targets will be 6 
inches square for 
25 and so yd. and 
12 inches square 
for lOO yd. shoot- 

\ ing and only so 
many rings as can 
be included in 
these dimensions 
respectively will 
be printed. 



The National Rifle Association. — The rules gov- 
erning rifle shooting as adopted by the National 
Rifle Association, as well as other valuable infor- 
mation relating to the use of the nearest ranges be- 
longing to the regular army, national guard or rifle 
club and the qualification for boys under 18 years 
of age to membership can be had by addressing 
Major Fred H. Phillips, Jr., Washington, D. C. 

The Association for the Encouragement of Trap- 
shooting. — The rules governing trap-shooting and 
information concerning membership in the above 
association can be obtained by addressing the Sec- 
retary of the above association, Mr. E. Reed 
Shaner, 219 Coltart Ave., Pittsburgh, Pa. 



APPENDICES 

APPENDIX A 

Lyman Time System of Rifle Shooting. — For shooting 
under this system only rifles using the following cartridges 
will be permitted: .22-short; .22-long; .22-long rifle; .22 
Winchester automatic; .22 Winchester rim-fire; .32-short; 
.32-long, and ,32-long rifle. 

Targets. — 25 yards : Lyman's target No. i ; 50 yards : 
Lyman's target No. 2, and 100 yards : Lyman's target No. 3. 

Shots. — Ten. 

Time-limit. — 20 seconds. 

Scoring. — For any shots that are fired within the time- 
limit that do not score on the target, the shooter forfeits 
5 points. 

The following points to be added to the target score : 



10 shots in 20 seconds time-limit. 



10 ' 


( (( 


19 


10 ' 


( « 


18 


10 * 


i tl 


17 


10 ' 


I (( 


16 


10 * 


( (( 


15 


10 ' 


I « 


14 


10 ' 


< « 


13 


10 * 


( (^ 


12 


10 * 


I (t 


II 


10 


( <( 


10 



2 


points 


4 


« 


8 


« 


12 


« 


14 


« 


20 


(( 


25 


u 


30 


« 


^^ 


(t 


40 


it 



193 



194 Appendices 



APPENDIX B 

Targets for Rifle Practice.— A large number of different 
kinds of targets have been used by American riflemen 
during the past fifty years, and the following are a few of 
them : 

The Creedmore target with a square bullseye was adopted 
by the National Rifle Association in 1871, when it was called 
the National Rifle Association Target. 

The Hinman target was designed by Major Hinman in 
1885, and it was adopted by most of the American rifle 
clubs in the United States in 1886. It is now called the 
Standard American Target. 

The Standard American target is used for pistol, revolver 
and rifle shooting. The dimensions of this target for 200- 
yard rifle shooting are : 





Diameter 


of Circles 




lo-inch circle, 


3.36 inches 


5-inch 


circle, 


19.68 inches 


9 " 


5.54 " 


4 " 


<< 


26 


8 " 


8 


3 " 


<i 


34.22 " 


7 " 


II 


2 " 


n 


46 


6 " 


14.80 " 


I " 


(( 


balance of tar- 
get, 4x6 feet. 



Width of Rings 

9 1.09 inches 5 2.44 inches 

8 1.23 " 4 3.16 " 

7 1.50 " 3 4.11 " 

6 1.90 " 2 5.89 " 

The National Rifle Association target was adopted by the 
National Rifle Association of America in 1901. There are 
three classes of targets, and these are: (i) first class; 
(2) second class, and (3) third class. 



Appendices 195 

The first-class target is 6x12 feet square and the range 
is 800, 900 and 1,000 yards. The bullseye is 3 feet in 
diameter; the center 4^ feet in diameter; the inner space 
Is 6 feet square and the outer space is the balance of the 
target. 

The second-class target is 6 x 6 feet square, and the range 
is 500 to 600 yards. It has a bullseye 22 inches in diameter, 
center 38 inches, inner 54 inches in diameter and the outer 
the balance of the target. 

The third-class target is 4x6 feet square, and the range 
is 200 to 300 yards. The bullseye is 8 inches in diameter, 
the center is 26 inches, the inner is 46 inches in diameter 
and the outer is the balance of the target. 

The count on these targets is: bullseye 5; center 4; 
inner 3, and outer 2. Ricochet shots — that is, glancing 
shots — will be scored as misses except in skirmish and 
volley matches. 

The United States Army uses what is called silhouette or 
figure targets entirely and these consist of figures of men 
standing, kneeling and lying down as well as figures mounted 
on horseback and groups of mounted and unmounted figures, 
complete details of which will be found in the United States 
Army Regulations for Small Arms Firing and which can be 
obtained from the War Department. Washington, D. C. 

Indoor riiie targets are made in many shapes and designs, 
but as they are used at varying distances there are no 
standard rules which would apply to them. 



APPENDIX C 

Telescopic Rifle Sights. — A telescope, or telescopic sight, 
as it is called, is sometimes used for the sight of a rifle 
with the object of aiding poor sight and of increasing good 
sight of the shooter. Telescopic sights are rated by their 



196 Appendices 

magnifying power and hence they are called high power 
and low power, and these sights can be had from one 
power up. 

As it is quite impossible to hold a rifle still when shoot- 
ing without a rest every movement of the telescope which 
is fixed to the barrel of the gun is magnified and this is 
often very confusing to the shooter. For this reason low- 
power telescopes should be for offhand shooting and high- 
power telescopes are better for shooting with a rest. For 
offhand shooting telescopes of from 4 to 10 power will be 
found high enough, but for rest shooting 10 to 20 power 
can be used to advantage. 



APPENDIX D 

How td Find the Twist of Rifling. — Grease the inside 
of the barrel of your rifle good and plenty. Get a piece 
of straight wire that is smaller than the bore of the rifle 
and drill a hole in a bullet, which should be large enough 
to fit snugly into the bore in order to get the full impression 
of the rifling, and fasten one end of the wire to it. 

Now push the bullet by means of the wire from the 
muzzle to the point where the rifling starts at the chamber. 
Fix the barrel in a vise and make a chalk mark on the 
breech and muzzle of the barrel and also make a mark on 
the wire in a line with those on the barrel. Make a mark 
on the wire even with the muzzle and force the bullet 
toward the muzzle. 

When the chalk mark on the wire has turned once around 
and it is again in line with those on the barrel measure the 
number of inches the mark on the wire has traveled from 
the muzzle of the barrel and you will have the twist of 
the rifling. The rifling of a barrel is from 2 to 5 thou- 
sandths of an inch deep. 



Appendices 197 



APPENDIX E 

Twist of Rifling in Barrels of Various .22-Caliber 

Rifles.— 

Remington Rifles. — 

.22 Short one turn in 24 inches 

.22 Long and Extra Long Rim-fire. . " " " 20 " 

.22 Long Rifle Rim-fire " " *' 16 " 

.22 13-45 W. C. F " " "16 " 

Winchester Rifles. — 

.22 13-45 C. F one turn in 16 inches 

.22 Short and Long R. F., Model '90, 

and .22 Long S. S 

.22 Short, Single-shot 

.22 Long Rifle, S. S 

.22 Long Rifle, Model 1906 

.22 W. R. F., Model '90 

Savage Rifles. — 
.22 S. H. P , one turn in 12 inches 

Marlin Rifles. — 

.22 Rim-fire Ballard one turn in 20 inches 

.22 Rim-fire Magazine " " "16 " 

Stevens Rifles. — 

.22 Short Rim-fire one turn in 25 inches 

.22 Long Rifle Rim-fire " " "16 " 

.22 15-60 " " " 12 " 



APPENDIX F 

What the Caliber of a Rifle Means. — The caliber of a 
rifle or a revolver is the gauge of its bore and it is meas- 
ured by the hundredths of an inch. Take, for instance, 
a .22-caliber rifle ; this means that the bore is xVf of an inch 
in diameter, but instead of using a common fraction to 



(( « 


20 " 


« « 


24 " 


<< « 


16 " 


" " 


17 " 


<< « 


14 " 



198 



Appendices 



express it a decimal fraction is used, when, of course, it 
becomes simply .22. In the same way .32-caliber means 
that the bore is x\% inch. If the caliber of a rifle was .25 
then its bore would be ^^^ or ^ inch. 

APPENDIX G 



What the Gauge of a Shotgun Means. — The gauge of 
a shotgun is measured in a very different way from that 
of a rifle. The reason is that the bore of a rifle is meas- 
ured by the up-to-date decimal system while a shotgun is 
still measured by a very ancient and arbitrary scheme. 

That is, in days of old when knights were bold and 
bullets held their sway, the only kind of bullets used were 
round and the gauge of a gun was known according to 
the number of shot or bullets that there was in a pound. 
As an illustration, if the barrel of a gun was bored to use 
a ball and it took 25 of these balls to weigh a pound, it 
was called a 25-gauge gun. 

The following table gives the gauge of the different 
bores of standard shotguns and also the exact diameter of 
each gauge in thousandths of an inch: 



Gauge or 
Bore 

8 

10 

12 

14 
16 
20 

25 

30 

40 
50 



Diameter of Bore 
in Decimals 



835 

775 
729 

693 
662 

615 
571 
637 
526 



453 



Appendices 199 



APPENDIX H 

Smokeless Rifle Powders. — All smokeless rifle powders 
may be divided into two classes, and these are (i) nitro- 
glycerine and (2) nitrocellulose. These classes may again 
be subdivided into (A) hulk powders and (B) dense pow- 
ders, and the dense powders may again be divided into 
(a) ordinary military powders and (b) improved military 
powders. 

Nitroglycerine powders are made of gun cotton contain- 
ing a large amount — between 30 per cent and 50 per cent— 
of nitroglycerine. Nitrocellulose powders are made of 
practically pure gun cotton. The nitroglycerine powders 
burn at a very much higher temperature than the nitro- 
cellulose type of powders; this high temperature causes the 
pores of the steel in the rifle barrel to expand and this 
permits the acids liberated by the explosion to penetrate the 
pores of the steel, which in turn causes severe erosion. 

The nitrocellulose powders, on the other hand, are very 
cool burning and therefore much less erosive than the nitro- 
glycerine type. As an illustration, the usual life of a rifle 
using nitroglycerine powders is 2,000 to 3,000 rounds, but 
with the improved military powders rifles have been tested 
up to 18,000 rounds without losing their accuracy to any 
appreciable extent. 

Dense powders are hard-grained and do not readily absorb 
moisture. Bulk powders are somewhat fluffy in appearance, 
and if they are not kept in air-tight receptacles are very apt 
to take up a certain percentage of moisture and then require 
redrying before using. Dense nitrocellulose powders may 
be stored for any length of time in any climate without 
deterioration. 

Nitroglycerine powders, however, deteriorate very quickly 
in warm climates and the ammunition manufacturers gen- 



200 Appendices 

erally use special loads of nitroglycerine powders when the 
cartridges are intended for use in hot climates. 



APPENDIX I 

The Maxim Silencer.— When a high-power rifle is shot 
it makes two separate noises, and these are (i) the noise 
made by the report of the gun, and which is caused by the 
sudden discharge of the powder gases into the air, and (2) 
the noise made by the flight of the bullet through the air. 

The noise made by the bullet's flight begins when its 
velocity is higher than the velocity at which the air naturally 
moves. Now, air travels at a speed of 1,075 to 1,100 feet a 
second, depending on the temperature. Any bullet which has 
a velocity of less than 1,075 feet per second makes no bullet 
flight noise and any bullet which has a higher velocity than 
this makes a decided noise. 

.22-caliber smokeless short or long rifle ammunition and 
.22-caliber Winchester automatic have a silent bullet flight, 
while .22-long and .22 W. R. F. have a noisy flight. Of 
course since the bullet flight noise takes place outside of the 
gun it is not suppressed by the silencer. 

But the report noise is entirely suppressed by the silencer, 
for the latter is fixed on to the end of the rifle barrel and 
it checks the muzzle blast. In A, Fig. 60, is shown a cross- 
section of the silencer, and B shows the silencer used on a 
rifle for indoor target practice. 

Now, the silencer works like this : Instead of the gases of 
the powder being forced into the air at the same instant 
that the bullet leaves the muzzle of the gun, the gases are 
caught up by the silencer. The construction of the silencer 
is such that the gases are made to whirl around inside the 
silencer, and the whirling motion forces the gases to fly out 
from the center by centrifugal force, leaving a hole in the 



Appendices 



201 



center just the same as when water is whirled round in a 
fixed bowl a hole or space is formed in the center. 

This leaves a clear space for the bullet to make its passage, 
but the gases cannot get through this space until it has 




Fig. 60 — The Maxim Gun Silencer. 

slowed down. Instead now of there being a blast at the 
end of the muzzle the gases discharge slowly into the air 
and this not only prevents the noise of the report but it also 
lessens the recoil of the gun. 

THE END 



1 



